For Thine is the Kingdom
by KatieR
Summary: An intimate look at the final month of Anne Boleyn's life. Rather AU. Intrigue, lies, anger, passion, lust, confusion, desperation. Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell, among others.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Hello everyone! This is my very first fanfiction, or any creative writing, for that matter. I've written quite a bit already but want to gradually post it.

The story begins 19 April 1536, one month to the day prior to Anne's execution – although no one knows that yet. You'll see that there are parts based on scenes from 'The Tudors,' of course, but much of the story is made up.

I hope you love it and please review – be kind! Oh, and of course, I own nothing.

For Thine is the Kingdom

19 April 1536 - Morning

The Queen ran her fingers over several different pieces of ribbon as she stood in her dressing gown before her wardrobe. Silently she took inventory of them: damask, silk, satin. Olive, ebony, twilight, copper – lovely colours, all. Her fingertips sought the ebony satin, but she did not pick it up. Her gaze strayed, and she began to wander about the room, looking at nothing. Ordinarily she took great pleasure in dressing, and sought to outfit herself in a selected, consistent manner from head to toe. Today her thoughts were elsewhere.

_Eleven weeks_, she thought, her hand coming to rest on her flat stomach. Her abdomen was as slender as it had ever been – even more so, actually, since her appetite was not what it once had been. There was no hopeful swelling, no blessed hill on her lower belly, no God-given protrusion of any kind. No baby. No prince. It had been nearly three months since she had lost her son. "The Queen has miscarried of her saviour," Chapuys had written to the Emperor that day in January. How she hated that damned mincing little Spaniard. The thought of crushing his forehead with the heel of her shoe shot a current of malevolent delight through her, and she blinked slowly, her eyelashes lowering and raising indulgently as she relished the thrilling thought of the Imperial Ambassador's death. She would be rid of Spanish-accented irritants forever.

Of course Chapuys had said that. He hated her as much as she hated him. And he thought that no one would tell her what he had written in his slanderous reports to Charles? The fool. The gossip had, of course, filtered back to her eventually; everyone had prophesied about what this latest miscarriage meant. She was barren; God was punishing her for supplanting a good woman; she was not made of the stuff of queens. Never a word about her husband's repeated infidelity and the pain it had caused her. Never a word that, perhaps, Henry was not the potent progenitor that he fancied himself. Katherine of Aragon – _Princess_ _Dowager_, Anne reminded herself of her predecessor's rightful title – had had eight, _eight_, miscarriages and stillbirths. Anne had lost two sons. Each had produced a daughter. What did they have in common? Their husband. _My husband_, Anne corrected herself again. Henry had never been Katherine's. Yet a tiny mirthless smile crept to her mouth. She had to admit that he went through similar phases with her. As he had not lain with Katherine for the last several years of their pretended marriage, he was now chasing others and neglecting his current wife.

Henry had not visited her bed since she had informed him that she was with child in November, and had made no indication that he intended to do so ever again. She had done her best to enchant him, to beguile him, to make him recall what they had shared in the past, especially since her miscarriage. It was to no avail. He remained, and seemed to grow ever more, hardened against her. He was polite and cordial when necessary, but there was an utter lack of intimacy to any of his interactions with her. She laughed, but it could not be truly called a laugh; it was instead a single burst of air exhaled through her nostrils as an ironic smile possessed her mouth. She found it eerie how little he cared to act intimately with her in light of the onslaught of passion which had endured throughout the early years of their relationship. At this thought she closed her eyes and forbade further memories from entering her mind, but failed. She had to admit that she was desperate for his touch. She loved her husband. She wanted him to return that love in the same way that he once had. Those years of holding him off, stepping away from him, shaking with desire as she weakly denied him access to her body, now haunted her. He had burned with lust for her, and now his flame appeared quite extinguished. With age? No – he did not ignore women, just her. With boredom? Doubtful. Their last coupling had been absolutely spine-tingling. A real smile lit her face as she glanced at the space where the corset that she had been wearing that wonderful night hung in her wardrobe. She could not see it, could not even see its red lacings dangling against the wall of the wardrobe chest. But she knew where it hung, where it had hung since that night, against the wall. She had returned to her own rooms a bit disheveled, had undressed, and washed their mutual sweat off of her skin. Bade Nan to hang her clothes up, triumphant, and as Nan combed out her hair, admired the glowing of her own complexion. She had replayed the encounter, one of few in those weeks, over in her mind.

"Mark," Henry had said, half-drunk, and too intimidatingly close to the musician for anyone's comfort, "… play a volte."

A secret wave of goosebumps flooded Anne's legs, torso, and arms at the way her husband looked into her eyes when he turned toward her. She had seen that look before, not a few times. Henry was in the grip of wine, she knew, as he increasingly was. She was irritated at how pleased she was with Henry's obvious desire for her: something which she had previously taken for granted was now seldom available to her. She barely hid a smile as her husband turned full circle away from the musician, his body seeking hers. The dance was much too brazen for company. Yet she would not upbraid him; she was as desirous of it as he was, and thrice as desperate.

She was angry at him, too, and she did not realize how much until they were back in his chamber and she was wrestling to get on top of him, then ripping his linen shirt – devoid of any of Katherine's damned Spanish embroidery – from his heaving chest. She kissed him lingeringly and then pulled back and, without a thought in her mind, cracked the heel of her hand across his cheekbone. He was not cross, as she knew he would not be. His skin was alive with the beat of his heart as he registered the blow, then his blue eyes danced and he sighed, an amused, lust-ridden sound, before roughly grabbing her neck and thrusting her onto her back. She knew it would be over quickly, as it always was; it mattered not. She needed her husband's touch, and she needed to conceive his child. She hated to admit how important that was.

Afterward, she tried to stop herself from speaking those manipulative words about Katherine and Mary. She knew it would anger him, but she could not help herself. She must put the idea into his mind that he rid himself of them. Yet even as his body stiffened and he glared at her accusingly, she watched his mind process the information. A fortune-teller had told her? He wondered. _I cannot have a son until Katherine and Mary are dead? _Anne was no fool. Her husband was superstitious. He wanted them out of the way, too, and before he could question Anne or think overmuch on her motivations, or, God forbid, ask her to leave, she had slithered back up the mattress to Henry's body and rolled onto her side, positioning her body against him. "I love you," she whispered in his ear, trailing kisses from his neck over the line of his jaw, and finally kissing him softly on the mouth, her tongue touching his lower lip for an instant. His response was delayed, but his lips did seek hers in return. She could not satisfy him overmuch, no matter how much she longed to keep kissing him. She pulled her head away, smiled at her husband, and said quietly, "Visit me soon, sweetheart." Sliding away from him was painful – she had very little physical contact with him anymore – but she made herself do it; she must make him pursue her. He lied motionless, naked, as she pulled her underskirts up, smoothed her hair, nimbly laced the back of her stomacher. She resolved not to speak to him again before leaving the chamber. Steeling herself physically so as to not return to the bed for one last kiss – _I need it not; I need it not_ – Anne looked down at her clothes, adjusted one sleeve, and turned to go.

"Wife." The word echoed in the heavy, tangible silence in the room. This was not a room for lovers, playmates, a couple mad for one another, Anne thought vacantly. She rotated only her torso, and arched her neck so that her face almost looked at Henry, unmoving, on the bed. She waited expectantly. _Say nothing_, she demanded of herself.

"I love you." His proclamation was simple. His voice bore warmth but no passion. He did love her. Her heart erupted in her chest, and ecstatic tears flooded her eyes. She forced them back, clenching her teeth together. _Say nothing_. Aware of his eyes on her – such a pointless dance they were doing, and yet so much more interesting than their volte a half hour before – Anne paused, then closed her eyes briefly and allowed a slow, flattered smile to cross her face. She dipped her head as she turned her face away from him, trying to play at being surprised. Her cheeks actually flushed, and again she was irritated at herself, irritated at how grateful she was for those three simple words, spoken by her own husband. The next moment, she brought her head up, took a breath, and left him. _To bed_, she thought, _and pray God his love results in a prince._

She had known, even then, that she was carrying Henry's son. To her sadness, but not much to her surprise, he did not seek out her bed in the weeks following their volte. Anne had missed her next courses, and begun to feel her baby growing. Looking at the spot where the corset hung unobtrusively, the corset she had still been wearing when last she made love to her husband, the last time he had been eager for her, the last time she had felt that she had a fresh start with him, the last time he had told her he loved her, Anne closed her eyes briefly. She did not want to wear it ever again.

No, it was her who repelled him, she admitted to herself. Her person. His own queen. He had, it seemed, outgrown his passion for her. Just as he no longer took such joy from masquing or exhibiting his dancing skills, Anne had calmly come to the realization that she was a frivolous indulgence of Henry's youth which his new, hardened personality could no longer tolerate. Her husband was not the same man that she had once begun to love.

At this she turned away from her wardrobe and looked into the mirror atop her vanity table. Was she the same woman that he had desired in the beginning? The woman in the mirror looked tired, drawn, and old. Anne's fresh, youthful face, full with the vitality of innocence, had dulled into a, still attractive, moonlit pallor. She was still lovely, she fancied herself, but she was no longer the fresh young damsel that she had once been. Her icy blue eyes were as alive as ever, but there was a weariness within them, and shadows directly below. Her lips were still full, but now required cosmetics to attract the attention that once their natural plumpness and shapeliness had done. She had to admit that her hair was the same, not having changed at all, and as it hung in unseemly waves over her dressing gown, she wondered what it would look like when it was streaked with gray. She knew that this would happen eventually, and she tried to picture it, cringed as the image appeared, and turned away from the mirror and toward her wardrobe. She refused to resign herself to that yet – she was still young, and beautiful, and able to wield power in her own court. She would not give that up. She must recapture everything that she had feared was slipping away from her. Her lips compressed into a straight line as she determined to choose an outfit for today that would flatter her image of authority.

Anne selected a meticulous brocade gown from her wardrobe, with puffed shoulders and straight sleeves and an elaborate neckline. It would allow her to cut a regal figure in any room, she fancied. She remembered Henry's insistent tugging at her another time that she had worn the gown, on a night when he had desired her, God, a year at least before. His lips had been on her neck, peeling away the brocade, then near her ear, murmuring words of love. _Anne, my own darling, my sweetheart…_

Her eyes closed briefly against the memory. Today no such thing would happen. The gown would merely serve to showcase her as what she was becoming: a wife without a husband in the natural sense. Perhaps it would be more fitting to wear black today. But no, she had worn enough black following the death of her son. Today the imperial brocade would do. In a moment of ironic half-thought, Anne opened a tall, narrow drawer and withdrew a stiff lace collar from it. Its buttonholes matched the buttons on the inside of the brocade. _There_, she thought. _There will be no lips upon my neck this day; only lace._ She selected a corresponding headdress from the drawer and laid the brocade, the collar, and the headdress upon her unmade bed. Without much thought she added a pair of copper shoes and silk stockings. As she gazed at the clothing assembled on the bed, Anne sighed. This was likely to be the climax of her day, she thought reluctantly. The sun would climb in the sky, peak, and sink slowly into the starry depths of an early spring night while Anne kept a lonely court in her chambers, without her husband or any beloved company. She would be back in this room, fifteen hours from now, peeling off her stockings, removing her collar, combing her hair back into this mahogany cloud and retiring to the bed which now faced her in rumpled, lonely disarray, and nothing would have changed. As any other day.

Anne backed into a chair and gratefully reclined in it, still regarding the clothing on her bed as she perched her head on her fist. She remembered having new gowns made to please Henry. He loved her in bright colors, or at least, he _had_, when he had a mind to take any notice of her. Red, blue, green, purple. He wanted her outfitted as a jewel. She had taken secret pleasure in dressing in anticipation of his passionate overtures during their courtship: sleeves that she could slip off her shoulders to tease him, pretending it was an accident; stockings with thick garter ribbons, so if his hand ventured to the top of them, he would chuckle at her extravagance; gowns with tapered bodices, which he loved for some reason, perhaps because he could grip her hips hard through them without hurting her, perhaps because the bottom of her stomacher pointed to what he could not have. She'd only worn black or brown when he wanted to go for a gallop somewhere, and she was always his favorite companion. She'd had panels added to her skirts as her belly grew round with child each time, eliciting a kind smile and an "of course, my love," when she asked Henry whether it was all right for her to order fabric for this purpose. They both knew that she only asked to make them both happy: she never asked for permission to order fabric for anything else. Quiet moments of domestic happiness, secret smiles that passed between them as she played the deferential wife and expectant mother, these were all experiences of the past. How different was the process of choosing her clothing now. Her stolid outfit for today unfortunately reflected her matronly life. There would be no trysts in bed, no laughter in the hunt, no choreographed dances. And yet her choice of clothing remained important to her. Of course it did. She must look the part.

Anne glanced to her right and unblinkingly selected an olive silk hair ribbon. She slid it through her fingers, wrapped it around them slowly, then unfurled it and watched its spirals slacken and die. She remembered the ribbon on which she had written that defiant motto during her courtship with Henry, then placed it under her gown and bid him find it. Then he had not been able to go an hour without her. Now, as she counted, she realized that she had not seen him in a fortnight. A ghost of a smile, having formed at the memory, turned to melancholy on her downcast face. She asked herself honestly whether she would ever possess his heart that way again. True, he had turned his heart against her… but he would not act upon it, of that she was sure. He was too steadfast in his belief of his own authority, his right to marry her, and the defiance of those who argued against it, and that, if not his enduring passion for her, would save their marriage. Of this she was sure. But would he come to desire her again? She wanted his love, his hands, his skin, his passion. She could not deny the truth of what she had said to him last September – not since – and what she still felt: she loved him, loved him deeply. She was steadfast, even if he was not.

The ribbon was smooth and flawless. Anne placed the fingers of both hands in its middle, slid them outward, and then picked up the ribbon and placed it behind her neck, allowing it to drape over her shoulders with her hair. She bit the edge of her thumbnail, then turned her head to look once again at her reflection. It cheered her to see that, indeed, she was still beautiful. She ran her fingers through her hair, turned her face from side to side, and attempted a small smile, pretending that she was smiling at Henry. The effect was pleasing. She dipped her head at her reflection, as though ingratiating herself to someone. Even more so. Her confidence bubbled a little. _I am the Queen of England._ Now the smile was genuine, if a bit sly. She turned away from her reflection and called toward the door, "Nan! Come and help me dress!"

"Cromwell's rooms?" Anne repeated breathlessly, turning her head in a manner that she hoped disguised her alarm. Cromwell had given his rooms to the Seymours? Just _given_ them? _For shame, Master Cromwell_, she tutted him mentally. Giving up his apartments to the Seymours, parading his disloyalty for his queen for the whole court to see. He really should know better than that. Anne bit the inside of her lip as she waited for Nan's response.

"Yes," breathed Nan. Her tone of voice reflected pity: _Yes, Cromwell. He is not your friend._

_Not my friend_, Anne thought to herself. No, Master Cromwell was no longer her friend. She had lost his support, she was sure. He had become arrogant, overbearing, and had ceased to value the aspects of their Reformation that had once been of the utmost importance to him. And when she had taken him to task about it, instead of making amends or even deigning to understand the folly of his ways, he had failed to respect her authority as his queen. As though she knew not of what she spoke. Anne bit the inside of her lip harder in annoyance at the memory. Perhaps her threat to make him a head short had been excessive, but a man who failed to regard the opinions and warnings of his anointed queen had no place influencing the reform of a corrupt religion – or the court, or the king, for that matter. So, Master Cromwell had transferred his loyalty to the Seymours, had he? He would not get away with it.

Anne regarded Lady Jane Seymour once again across the room. The mincing wench. In a vague corner of her mind, Anne thought for a moment that Jane Seymour and Eustace Chapuys would make a nice pair. And she'd love to see them each a head short, next to Cromwell. At present Jane stood, doting over a locket which lay open in her palm, in front of the fire. On the wall beside her hung Anne's red velvet gown, the one she had worn to her ennoblement. She could recall the steadiness of her procession through the court toward Henry, not yet her husband; the weight of the robes of the peerage on her shoulders; the almost imperceptible triumph in Henry's voice as he created her Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. The effect of the triumphant memories unleashed by that gown coupled with the intuitive knowledge that it was her own husband's image upon whom Jane glowed was too much for Anne. Jane had been half the cause of the loss of Anne's prince. Her family had gotten hold of Cromwell's rooms, and that smacked of conspiracy. Jane was no Madge, no Eleanor Luke, had quickly by Henry and discarded. She was all virtue and morals, as Anne had been ten years before. Jane Seymour was after Anne's chair, there was no question in Anne's mind. And brazen insolence was a game that Anne could play. She had little direct power over Cromwell, as he was Henry's secretary, but Lady Jane was Anne's own servant. She was in the employ of the queen, and she needed to learn a lesson that none of Tyndale's work could teach her. Anne's eyes narrowed at Jane, and she handed her book of hours to Nan, rising from her chair in a swift if not entirely graceful fashion. As soon as she was on her feet, the ninny glanced up from the locket, snapped it shut, and regarded Anne apprehensively. Anne's footsteps were loud – these copper shoes were not appropriate for intrigue, she noted in a small corner of her mind – and as they neared Jane she attempted to scurry away, but it was too late. The Queen had cornered her. "What is that?" Anne inquired clearly.

Jane attempted to demur by glancing down, but Anne's icy gaze froze her into submission. "It is a … locket, Your Majesty."

"Let me see it." Jane hesitated, but there was no way out. She hoped to satisfy the Queen with minimal compliance. She held the closed locket out, still an arm's pace from Anne. _Oh, yes, Mistress Seymour is all sweetness and purity_, Anne thought to herself. _What disgusting impertinence_. Anne's eyes hardened. How she longed to throttle this woman. "Let me _see_ it."

Jane Seymour stepped forward, her shoes making a distinctive click in the Queen's now-silent rooms. Anne could feel the eyes of her ladies on her back but she was too tightly within the grip of hard, quiet anger to heed it. She removed the closed locket from Mistress Seymour's fingers, forced her to come closer, and opened it. There, plain as day, was Henry. A miniature. Around Mistress Seymour's neck. Anne remembered Katherine when she had discovered an expensive royal gift around Anne's own neck – _God, was it ten years ago?_ She had been dismissive, had assumed that it was of little ultimate consequence. Anne was not so. She refused to be so. She knew better. Who should know better than she? Jane's eyes, less than sweet in their appearance, bored into Anne's when the latter looked up. She met the gaze of this inexperienced, foolish woman and held it, tightening her grip on the locket.

Anne replayed, against her own will, the similar scene with Katherine. She had called Anne a whore and had been sanctimonious with her. What a mistake that had been. _Katherine released the necklace around my neck_, she recalled. _I am not Katherine._ She would not sink to the level of name-calling; she would not betray herself so. But before she could consider the aftereffects, Anne braced her fingers around the chain of the locket and yanked. The chain snapped from Mistress Seymour's neck. Mistress Seymour glanced up, her face torn between meekness and accusation, and then hurried away.

Anne watched her go, imperiously. She flung the locket into a corner and immediately felt the wet warmth of blood dripping down her fingers. Anne had not felt a thing, but the chain had apparently sliced into the flesh of her hand as she snapped it. Suddenly, she remembered that she had done this in the sight of her ladies in waiting and, returning to reality, she glanced toward the doorway. The ladies scattered under her gaze. Anne felt her eyes fill with tears and forced them down, turning away to compose herself. _You are the Queen of England_, she thought, steeling herself. Taking a deep breath, she turned on her heel and departed the room. She meant to return to her seat in the presence chamber but felt herself sweeping past her ladies in waiting, her gown nearly brushing them as they dropped into curtsies at her passing.

Anne bit her lower lip hard. In her mind she saw Mistress Seymour admiring that damned locket, the same way that Anne's eyes had lit up when she received some new token from her love so long ago. She felt bile in her throat. This was the way that it had happened, was it not? She had been recast as Katherine, with a new young damsel to play the king's sweetheart. _I will tolerate it no longer_, she seethed. She knew that she had enemies at court, and few true friends, but she was the _Queen_, and that position was never without power. She had set her reaction in motion, and she knew where she was going: to the Secretary.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Happy Sunday and welcome to Chapter II! I hope you all enjoy it, and a hearty thank you to my first reviewer, MrsPhantomSylvia!

19 April 1536 - Afternoon

Daniel leaned against the grimy wall of the kitchen, waiting for the cook to come out so that he could relay His Majesty's dinner orders. His mind went over and over the orders, determined to keep them as clear as when King Henry had spoken them to him. He must not make a mistake; the king would know who had erred, and Daniel would receive a lengthy rebuke. He was sated with the king's shouting, and had actually been relieved to leave the royal chambers to report to the cook. Daniel rubbed his eyes, pushing against the sides of his nose. His head throbbed from being in the king's chambers lately. There was so much noise, anger, distress everywhere in those rooms. The king had, in earlier days, been kind to Daniel. Lately he would cuff him as soon as speak to him. Any time that the king was angry with an advisor, with parliament, with his wife, with his courtiers, it was his servants who bore the brunt of his temper. Daniel was a faithful servant to His Majesty, and always would be, but he was aware and fearful of Henry's changing personality.

The conversations in the royal chambers lately had seemed to Daniel immensely duplicitous. He had little opportunity to glean information from the rest of the court as he usually inhabited only Henry's chambers, but Daniel had known for some time that there were intrigues afoot. He had no choice but to overhear conversations between the king and his various companions. In particular, Daniel feared for Queen Anne. He knew that some trouble was being brewed by Master Cromwell at her expense. He knew not what – it could be anything, he knew, as the king had become so unpredictable of late – but it bothered him intensely. Queen Anne was very kind to him, and to the other servants with whom Daniel had seen her interact. He could never share in any of the ill-themed conversation about her, most of which centered around her background and her haughtiness. He had seen her kindness and he was aware that she loved her husband, and Daniel, despite his young age, realized that this was an important quality in a woman. She had little choice but to be haughty, he reasoned, since most people at court were turning their backs on her. He had looked her in the face, and she was beautiful; he could not understand why the king neglected her so. So, when Daniel listened to King Henry's conversations with the ominous Master Secretary, his heart sickened a trifle to hear the queen's name mentioned. He had held his breath, hoping that they would spell out their 'plans,' as Henry had called them – but they had not. Where in God's name was the cook? Daniel wondered absently, an idea forming in his mind.

Queen Anne had lost her child, a son, that Daniel knew. He had been at the court long enough to know how momentous and awful a tragedy this was to the royal couple. For this reason he sensed that the queen was in danger: her husband was disappointed in her, less in love with her all the time, and courting one, another one, of her ladies. Daniel's nerves were on edge around his master; when Henry was the slightest bit irritated with him, he would smack his hands, his neck, his shoulders, his head, whatever was closest. He would call him 'knave,' 'idiot,' 'fool,' 'imbecile,' and so on. Daniel was certain that Henry did not treat his wife that way, but he was anxious about what his plans were for her. He had heard him shout at Queen Anne several times, and there was little between shouting and violence where the king was concerned. Daniel chewed on his lip. He could not. He could not possibly.

Finally, the cook appeared just when Daniel had forgotten about him. Pleased with himself, he rattled off Henry's detailed dinner orders – seven courses, Daniel marveled – and bade the cook farewell, reluctantly heading back toward the royal chambers. _I could not. It is not my place_, Daniel thought to himself. He turned the thought over and over in his mind. Yet even as he denied himself the right to carry out the action that had occurred to him after the last conversation between King and Secretary, he was taking a detour to his own room. Small it was, desperate it was not; His Majesty took good care of his own servants. At this thought Daniel checked, less sure of himself than ever. He could not betray his king and his intentions. He was a mere servant. He knew nothing of politics.

The queen reminded him of his sister. Arbella had been dead for three years, having passed the year that Daniel came into the royal service. Queen Anne was admittedly fairer, but they had similar faces, lovely eyes, laughing countenances. They were both kind. Daniel sighed as he thought of his departed, beloved sister. He did not want the queen to be dishonoured in any way, and he feared that without help she would be thrown to the wolves. Queen Katherine, God bless her soul, had suffered many tribulations after being cast aside. Queen Anne was too fair a jewel, too kind and generous a consort, to be forced into the same sort of emotional purgatory. She had done, Daniel reasoned, nothing wrong. The king had turned against many of his loved ones, even in the short years that Daniel had known him – most notably Sir Thomas More – and even a servant outfitted in Tudor rose-embroidered livery had the good sense to realize that there was no reason for much of it. Daniel's resolve was bolstered at this: he had to, he knew, do the right thing. It was not his place, but his conscience could bear no other. He leant against the closed door of his small bedchamber, listening. Would anyone have noticed his absence, and come looking for him? It would be a sign from God if he were intercepted before he could commit this betrayal of his master. But as he breathed deeply and counted to fifteen, he heard nothing. _Onward_. Daniel extracted a quill from a drawer of his small desk and laid a small piece of parchment on the desktop.

At the sight of the parchment, Daniel almost faltered. He put his hand to his forehead and rubbed his fingers over his temple. He was sweating, he realized. _Damnation_. He resolved to clean himself up before he presented himself to the king. As he thought of Henry, Daniel ran his fingers over his head and sought the bump on the back of his skull. It was still there, still raised, and still quite tender. He had relayed dinner orders incorrectly last week. Pray God he had not made any mistakes with the cook just now. Daniel rubbed the bump gently, staring at the blank parchment before him. What in God's name was he to do? If he took quill to parchment and was discovered, he would be butchered at Tyburn. If he did nothing, he would feel as though he could have helped the innocent Queen Anne, aided another queen from being cast off for no reason, and had done nothing. Were it worse to suffer physically or mentally? Daniel was no fool, and he was no heretic. He felt God's eyes on him. He shut his eyes and lolled his head forward, twisting it to one side and then the other. Whatever his decision was, he had to make it quickly. God forbid the king actually notice where he was and how long it took him to order dinner.

Frustrated with his own indecision, Daniel shoved his chair back as he jumped to his feet, then began pacing in the little space between his window and the side of the desk. His chamber was small; he could cross it in four steps. One, two, three, four, turn. One, two, three, four, turn. One, two, three, four – Daniel paused at the window and gazed up to the heavens. _Guide me_, he begged. _What should I do?_ Pressing his palms flat together, Daniel bent his head and touched it to the tips of his middle fingers. An image of Arbella came to him, startling him, followed by one of the royal couple on their thrones, and then, lastly, his most personal memory of Queen Anne.

At a banquet, one – no, two years ago, Her Majesty had sat, slumped forward slightly, in her chair at dinner. Her husband was not there. She pretended that she did not notice. Behind Henry's chair stood a servant, one of her husband's personal attendants. His presence signaled that the king should have been in attendance; Anne looked at the young man, no more than twenty, for a moment too long. He glanced up at her through his eyelashes, his head still bent down deferentially. Anne looked away guiltily, then realized her posture and sat up, smiling proudly at no one. Where in God's name was Henry? Where were her father and brother? _A queen is not meant to be alone at state banquets,_ Queen Anne must have been thinking. Daniel, his head bent in silent apology for his master's actions, agreed. He came forward to fill her wine glass. "Would Your Majesty desire more wine?" he asked, trying to be unobtrusive.

She was distracted, picking at the table draping. "Yes, thank you," she responded, her voice hollow. She barely turned her head. Then, suddenly, "Where is the king?"

Daniel tried not to allow the shock to register on his countenance. The Queen of England asking a servant the whereabouts of her husband? "I know not, my lady," Daniel replied, his voice low and apologetic. "His Majesty must be indisposed."

At this Anne gave a ladylike little gurgle of laughter. "I am certain." She paused, then looked at Daniel once more. "You have been in service at court for a year or so, yes?"

This time the shock did show. "Yes, Majesty." He had finished pouring the wine. What should he do now? She was clearly lonely, to be chatting with a servant, and he did not want to leave her by herself. Yet he could not presume to entertain the queen in her husband's stead. He had, after all, spent the afternoon helping His Majesty to choose one of the best doublets from the royal wardrobe, which Daniel suspected was now being pawed at by one of Her Majesty's lovely ladies-in-waiting. Daniel sneaked a look at Queen Anne. She was dressed flawlessly, as usual. He wondered whether she had hoped to entice the king to her bed tonight, and immediately his cheeks were aflame with internal embarrassment. That was no way to think about his queen.

She was speaking again. "You need not be surprised. I think it practical to keep track of the royal servants." She graced him with a smile. The effect was dazzling. "Your name is…" She rolled her eyes from the court, at which she had been gazing aimlessly, to his face, then heavenward in thought as she brought an index finger to her lips. "… John?" While Daniel was wondering whether it was proper to correct a queen, or whether he should be prepared to live out his life hereafter as John when in Her Majesty's company, Queen Anne jumped in: "Nay! Daniel, is it not?"

A small wave of flattery washed over him. "Yes, Majesty." This was too much. He could not stand here and converse with an anointed queen. He should not even be breathing the same air as she; he had bathed that day, but somehow he felt that he might tarnish her lovely purple gown or the ropes of pearls wound around her neck. He began to step away.

"Your sister died upon your embarkation to court, is that correct?"

Daniel froze, halfway behind His Majesty's empty chair, his right foot still next to Queen Anne's gilded chair-leg. He dared to look her in the face. What was she doing? Her blue eyes were wide and earnest; she meant no harm or jest at his expense. She was just asking him a question. _How utterly bored she must be_, Daniel decided absently. He nodded at her in response, trying not to think about his sister's death. She had been one year younger than Daniel, and had been getting progressively more ill as he readied himself for royal service. She was too weak to get out of bed and bid him good-bye, and he promised to return to visit her within a month. Coughing into a pink-stained square of linen, Arbella retorted that he would be married to a countess by then. "Promise to name your first child after me," she demanded.

"What if it's a boy?" he smiled.

"Arbeller, then." She closed her eyes and leant her head against her pillow. "Do write. I should like to know all about Her Majesty."

"Of course." Daniel brushed her hair away from her forehead. Her skin was burning. "Do get better quickly. I shall be too busy to say many prayers for you," he warned, "so you must improve apace."

"I am the picture of health," she returned. "Hay fever is all. Go catch your barge. Do write!" She waved him away. Daniel swept her a pretty bow, which he had practiced for court, and was off.

She had died the following morning, her coughing getting progressively worse throughout the evening. It was not hay fever but consumption. Daniel had composed his first letter to her at court, filled with descriptions of King Henry and the courtiers, but mostly of Queen Anne, and he received the short message from his father that Arbella was dead just after he sealed it. He had not been able to return home for the modest funeral, and had been forced to mourn on his own at court, never properly bidding his sister farewell.

Now Daniel held Queen Anne's gaze. "Yes, Majesty." Then, unbidden, "Her name was Arbella."

The queen nodded slowly, once. "A lovely name. I was told of the tragedy by one of my maids, who said you were in unbelievable grief for her. I am sorry for your loss." She paused. "His Majesty also mentioned that you were quite out of sorts for a time. I said a prayer for you and for her soul."

Daniel noticed the implication: she, not the king, had prayed for him. She was a kind woman. Arbella would have been thrilled to know that the Queen of England cared for the state of her soul. He smiled at the queen. "I owe Your Majesty much thanks. I cannot express my gratitude adequately. Please tell me how I can repay you."

Queen Anne laughed again; a giggle, halfway between endearing and seductive, bubbled up from her throat. "You need not thank me. I understand grief for a loved one. I once lost two of my maids to the sweating sickness, and contracted it myself from one of them, God rest their souls. I really hate to imagine those who serve well to be in pain and distraction. It was my duty to pray for your cause." She sat back in her chair, the goblet of wine in her hand, and surveyed the court. Her body language – overly-straight back, stiff shoulders, turned-out elbows, a stiff neck – made it clear that she was trying to play the part of the regnant queen, yet she still desired some personal interaction. Clearly she wanted Daniel's company, but they both knew that it was inappropriate that she continue talking to this serving boy. Everyone else knew it too, or would, if they bothered to pay any attention to their consort. But no one did. Queen Anne was smiling for no one. He watched the muscles around her mouth tighten; she pursed her lips a little, then drew in a great breath. He still stood, half-bent over next to her chair, completely unsure of himself. He glanced around the room. Still, no one was paying any attention to him, and by implication that meant that no one was paying much attention to Her Majesty. She continued to refuse to register this, although it must have been painfully obvious to her. Her collarbones rose toward her chin, the mounded pearls on top of them catching the torchlight, and when she exhaled another artificial smile enveloped her features. Not looking at him, Queen Anne said cordially, "I do hope that you are enjoying your time at court, Daniel. And I hope that you will continue to do so. His Majesty tells me naught but good about his servants." This was a lie, and they both knew it. Daniel could not imagine that the king made conversation about the quality of his serving staff to his wife. She was simply being polite, and the fact that she could deign to be so to him, in addition to all the kindness she had already shown, touched his heart genuinely. He sensed that he needed to retreat from her, and that she was trying to dismiss him kindly.

"I am much enjoying myself, my lady. I find my employ to be the most wonderful position in the world." He bowed again and stepped back as she nodded, giving him leave to go. Her face was serene as she gave off the appearance that she utterly loved presiding alone over a banquet that the king had ordered.

No sooner had Daniel returned to his post a few meters away than the queen's head turned, with infinite grace, to the left. She did not address him by name, but she looked at him – caught him looking at her, to his embarrassment – and inclined her head, indicating that he should return. Daniel's heart froze. He could not approach her again. Did she need more wine? She could not have drunk that much already. Cautiously, he took two steps toward her, then two more, and then, standing a safe distance away, he bent at the waist, bowing deeply and coming as close as he dared to her. She had turned her head again and was staring straight forward, again smiling her radiant smile. He wondered if this was what her life was like. She seemed ebullient at everything, but there was a loneliness in her tonight. He hoped that it was not always this way for her. Still bowing – his back was beginning to ache – he waited.

Gazing ahead of her, her cheeks dimpled with her apparent delight, Queen Anne said in a soft, almost intimate voice, "There is one thing that you may do for me, Daniel." He waited still, but she hesitated.

"Yes, Your Majesty?" The words were out of Daniel's daring mouth before he could stop them. Again he gazed up through his eyelashes at her, but she was not looking at him. Her flowing sleeves, cascading ringlets of hair, dangling earrings, ropes of pearls, and queenly manner were frozen into an implacably regal vision. She was as perfectly molded, attired, and alabastered as though she had been sculpted by an Italian. And as quiet. She remained silent for another long moment, taking a sip from her goblet. Then, without as much as a breath to preface her voice, she spoke.

"You may find my husband for me."

Daniel had nodded and hurried away, both surprised and not so. He had tried not to think of the implications of the task, the situation, the royal marriage. And in any event he had been unsuccessful, and returned to his post alone. Queen Anne threw him a sideways glance, her least graceful movement of the evening, and he looked up and shook his head minutely. Enough of an answer that was. She carried on as merrily throughout the evening as if she presided over the whole of the world.

Now, Daniel lifted his head from his fingertips and stared at the window in front of him. Did not the queen deserve some attention paid to her cause? He had failed in finding her husband that night, and in some way he wanted to repay her kindness to him. Daniel stepped forward and gazed out the window at the sky and the sun, and then, explicably, he looked down and saw the queen herself, stalking – yes, stalking, not gliding as was her custom – across the courtyard. She looked nothing like she had on that night that she had asked about Arbella: her hair was pulled back into a severe coif, her neckline was high and adorned with a collar which shrouded her pale face with an even whiter ruffle, and there was nothing fanciful or lovely about her gown. The youth was gone from her. She did not even pretend to be happy. She looked betrayed, angry, almost desperate. Yet she was the wife of his master, his true master. She was not his mistress.

As though afraid that she would see him, Daniel turned away from the window. He went to his desk, righted his chair, and sat down to the blank parchment. He reached inside the drawer of his desk for his inkwell, brushed his hand deliberately across the hard wax seal of the letter he had written to Arbella the first night he had sat at this desk, and steeled his resolve once and for all. Taking a deep breath, Daniel wetted his quill and looked once more at the clean parchment on his desk. "God help me," he muttered before defacing it with his betrayal of his master.

**UP NEXT…**

Queen vs. Secretary, The Confrontation:

'He kept his head bowed and looked up at her, and was startled that her eyes looked glassy. _What the devil is wrong with her? _He wondered briefly, as she stared him down. Then he realized that her body, despite her spirit, longed to weep. Cromwell congratulated himself on bringing her nearly to tears.'


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Here we are: The Confrontation. This chapter corresponds with the scene in 2.08.

I would like to thank both of my new reviewers, Nat and assiage, for their comments! I very much appreciate the feedback, and thanks, assiage, for pointing out that I had not set the anonymous review option! I'm new to all this :)

As for the chapter, the interactions between Cromwell and Anne here serve the dual purpose of being the culmination of months of tension and suspicion as well as forming part of the basis for their relations over the next month.

Here we go… DUN, DUN, DUNNNNNNN!

19 April 1536 – Afternoon

Cromwell's clerks hastily bowed and doffed their caps to her, a chorus of "Your Majesty," rising in the stead of their headwear. Anne nodded curtly at them; she could not be bothered with niceties. She raised her eyebrows at the groom who stood next to the door to the hallway at the end of which was Cromwell's private office. He jumped in front of her and threw open the doors, and she, suddenly annoyed with all the falsity of these men – did they think her a fool? They worked for her greatest enemy – brushed past him, her long legs outpacing his as she strode down the corridor. "Your Majesty," he protested, unwilling to shove past her in order to reach the doors of the office before her.

Anne ignored him, reached the heavy double doors, and yanked them open. Odious Master Cromwell sat behind his desk, reading a massive parchment, probably something about money and disloyalty. He could not possibly have been deaf to her coming – again she cursed the loudness of these shoes – but he deliberately kept his eyes on the parchment and ignored her. She sent him nasty remarks in her mind, staring hard at him. He was much too observant not to notice, but he persisted in ignoring her. She turned her narrowed eyes on one of his clerks, who looked back at her meekly. He turned to Cromwell and said in a hushed voice, "Master Secretary."

Cromwell took his time in glancing at his clerk, who said nothing more, and then, with deliberate slowness, his eyes travelled to the queen. Pretending to be paralyzed with surprise at her heretofore unknown presence in his humble office, Cromwell uttered, "…Majesty!" and began shuffling at his papers. Anne made no attempt to hide the rolling of her eyes, and she nodded at Cromwell's clerks, who scuttled gratefully out of the office. Cromwell came around to stand in front of his desk without bowing to her or offering her obeisance in any way. He faced her with a wide, wolfish smile. "I have some good news for Your Majesty. The bill for the dissolution of the large monasteries has just passed Parliament. Our Reformation is moving apace."

A moment of palpable tension passed between them. The air was heavy as their eyes met. Anne's stomach hardened into a fierce knot as she imagined how it would feel to drive her elbow into his nose and crack it. She hated this man, she thought, communicating this clearly into his green eyes. He thought to transfer his loyalty away from his queen and then refer to his moneymaking venture gone awry as "Our Reformation"? He did not deserve to inhabit the same piece of property as she did, much less refer to something that they owned jointly.

His immovable smile remained fixated on her. In half a moment, never backing down from his stare, she composed herself and trusted her voice not to quaver with the anger she felt. She sought a less weighty reason for her visit, and found one readily. Dragging her eyes from his, she strode past him to his desk. "I have been informed privately, Master Secretary, that the king has already sold – _damnation. What was its name?_ – Sawley Abbey, in Yorkshire, to one of his courtiers," she began mussing the neatly arranged papers on his desk, knowing how this would irritate him. He was as immaculate as ever. She could almost feel his physical uneasiness at her rummaging about in his private correspondence. What would she find there? She was not facing him, but she knew that beneath his steady countenance he was unsettled at her visit. His refusal to acknowledge her presence in order to buy time, his attempt at ruffling her nerves, his references to something which he thought would please her, were all means of defense to the Secretary. His blood was pounding in his temples. Anne knew this, but she knew not how she knew this. Perhaps they were more alike than she thought, or perhaps she was more astute than he liked to acknowledge.

She continued, "…although the bill for its dissolution has not yet hit the books" – she selected an unrolled vellum and held it up to read – "and plainly on… _your_ advice." Anne infused a fair amount of disdain into her tone as she addressed him directly. She had not read the vellum, and she dropped it back onto his desk, raising her head. In a minute corner of her mind she imagined how imperious her stiff fluted collar must make her appear, even from the back.

"_Our_ Reformation was never supposed to _be_ about personal gain. Religious houses should not be sold off, but converted to better uses." She turned away from him, wandering around his office as if she owned it. It delighted her that she outranked him to the extent that she could stride about in his private quarters without having obtained leave to do so. She was also inwardly gleeful that she had chosen such a severe ensemble today; had she been in a soft pink gown with bare arms, or an ivory silk one with draped sleeves, or had her hair been loose down her back and interwoven with pearls, there would have been little chance of his taking her seriously. She looked grave, and she knew it. She had the advantage.

Cromwell was dithering something about the enrichment of the realm and so forth. Typical Cromwellian evasion. Would he never allow himself to be taken to task? She agreed with her former assessment of him: he _was_ far too high-handed. He tried to placate her by asserting that England would be greater than Spain – their mutual enemy. He was clever, she would grant him that. A lesser woman, a fool, a Jane Seymour, would accept his elegant, logical explanations, would accede to his flattery and his appeals to her political preferences. Anne knew better, just as she knew better than to discount her simpering little lady-in-waiting. Cromwell had finished, probably fancying himself as having convinced her of his good intentions, and was waiting expectantly for her to return, or make some demand upon him, or some such nonsense. What use was this? Anne turned her head toward him, her body facing the wall, where her finger had been tracing another one of his cumbersome documents which was spread on an inclined workdesk. She had perfected this practice of physical availability throughout her years by Henry's side. Katherine of Aragon had gained the upper hand by forcing Anne to face her when the younger lady was disadvantaged in a conversation. It made Anne vulnerable then, but a decade of life at the center of court – in one capacity or another – had done its work. Now Anne could easily progress through an argument, actively intimidating her adversary, all with just a few thoughts about how to place her body. If only she had been more deliberate with Mistress Seymour a few minutes ago.

Anne ignored whatever comments Cromwell had made; the knot in her stomach could bear civility no more. Her eyes connected with his for the first time since she had walked straight at him, forcing him to move and yield the territory of his desk to her. Her blue eyes flashed from his green ones to survey the rest of his face: ears, slightly larger than normal; curly hair cropped close to his forehead; strong chin; wide lips. She took in the lines of his smirk, imagining how the blood would pour from his mouth if she were to split his lower lip. Her elbow twitched at that thought, her eyes refocusing on his face, frozen in the earnest expression with which he had concluded his eloquent ramblings. She hated that expression, the narrowing of his eyes which was his physical trick; it said, 'Just look, your Majesty! I am utterly your creature.' Before she could continue thinking or let him think her convinced or, worse yet, bested by his speech, she broke the silence.

"So is it true you've given your private rooms here to the Seymours?"

_Damn_, thought Cromwell. How had she learnt about that already? He let out a great breath. His agents were adroit at sniffing out the smallest hint of gossip or conspiracy about the court, but when it came to keeping his own secrets, and on this delicate matter, they failed him? Or perhaps it was that fox Seymour who had leaked the information to unsettle the queen. No, that could not be. Seymour was no fool. He certainly understood the value of propriety, especially when the stakes were as high as all the players in this game understood them to be. The Seymours, no less than the Boleyns, were French-educated and nimble in intrigue. So who in God's name had told her? Would the king have been so thoughtless as to have dallied with Mistress Seymour in public? Was it his groom, Brereton? Perhaps Brereton had a fondness for the queen; perhaps he was secretly her partisan. Cromwell made a mental note to pursue that notion, for if he were going to topple the queen it would be necessary to disperse her supporters, and the first step toward that end was the identification of every solitary being at court who would speak, act, or even think in her defense.

Cromwell regarded Anne – Her Majesty the Queen – without the slightest bit of apprehension in his veins. He had faced soldiers on the battlefield – God, thirty years ago, had it really been that long? – French soldiers, Italian warriors, German mercenaries, probably even an Englishman or two, and feared for his life. He had dealt with Wolsey's annoyance on more than one occasion, faced the king in his increasingly dramatic bouts of rage, and even stared down Thomas More in his cell in the Tower. On each of those occasions he had felt a tremor of anxiety in his being. He had even experienced the thrill of a challenge when the Queen had, last July, summoned him to her presence chamber for no other reason than to make an enemy of him. Her eyes had been hot, her jaw set, her shoulders squared defiantly back, and she had worn a most ugly dress – in her draped black velvet, she looked as though she was dressed as a saint or a nun on that day. "_You ought to be careful,"_ her voice had hummed at him, half an arm's length from his face, _"or I will have you cropped at the neck."_

She was entirely different today, entirely. Her hair was pulled back in that same tight coif – _most unappealing,_ thought Cromwell, _and you'll never entice the king back into your bed looking like that_. Her skin was paler; she looked exhausted. She was thinner than ever, although the puffed sleeves and fanciful skirts of her otherwise sober gown tried to hide the bones of her shoulders and the gauntness of her midsection. She was wearing cosmetics, which she had not done in years past. She looked older than ever he had seen her. And she looked afraid. Terrified. Cromwell knew this because he was an excellent judge of expressions and body language, as was Her Majesty, he knew well. He knew her well enough to know that this was a stand-off. He knew also, although he knew not how he knew, that she was hoping for a crack in his unfaltering presentation. She was dying for a sign that she frightened him. Whether it was because this would please her, as she knew her authority was slipping rapidly from her grasp, or just because her hatred for him was as frigid as the Thames on Twelfth Night, he knew not. But he maintained his straight countenance and relaxed his shoulders, trying to show her that he was utterly unruffled. She was not welcome in his apartments, and she knew that. His heart had skipped a beat, not terrified but shocked, when he heard her voice down the hall and heard her shoes clicking quickly down his corridor. How could she presume to come upon him like that? The answer was because she was his queen. A tiny smile begged to pull at the corner of his lips, but he vanquished it, as he thought to himself: _Not for long_.

Anne looked deadened, resigned, today. Where she had in past rows flared and railed at him, and others of course, her body was not taut but a bit slack. The only true semblance of her former fighting self that remained in her today was her eyes, although these, too, were different: they were cold. She was not here to argue passionately some cause or berate him. She was angry, she was sorely angry, and she wanted cold retribution. Ideal for her would be the squeezing from Cromwell an explanation and an apology, and perhaps a promise to make things right. This he would not give her. She had no idea of what was coming, and he trusted that this was one detail – unlike his surrendering of his rooms to the Seymours – of which she would never be able to gain knowledge. Only he and the king knew anything of it, and barring some witchcraft on Anne's part Henry wanted no association with her. If she did employ witchcraft, for that matter, she would unknowingly be handing to Cromwell the means for her destruction. Either way, he had the advantage. His eclipse of her had begun, not by his own behest, nearly three years before. It was not his fault that Henry had a roving eye and a set of hands to match. And now it was complete. He had nothing to fear, he assured himself, pleased that no flaring of trepidation arose in him at her visit – although he did not relish her presence, especially unannounced. Her fingers had been a breath from a short, cryptic message from Henry as she fished around in the papers on his desk. He had said a small prayer as he watched the round ruby on her right middle finger turn over, her long fingers searching for something to pick up. Even though he knew that her roaming hands were for show, had she seen the flourished "" at the bottom of the scrap of parchment, there would have been much for Cromwell to explain, and although she would not be his queen for much longer and he owed her no loyalty, she wore the crown today and he could hardly disrespect her. He must remember that and give her no cause for alarm, for a suspicious Anne Boleyn, like a suspicious Thomas Cromwell, was not a creature that one wanted lurking about in one's private affairs.

So he faced her, not deferentially, but neutrally. He looked at her cold blue eyes, then down; it was a breach of protocol to stare at the windows to a royal soul, and in any case, despite the lack of sympathy which he felt for Anne he found that he did not want to look into her eyes for too long. He steeled himself and looked up again, unwilling to show unease in any way at the same time that he wanted to remain outwardly respectful, as these next weeks would depend upon his striking and maintaining this perfect balance. But he could not. Her face was open and solemn, and there was a painful hint of earnestness in it. He looked away, forcing himself not to feel guilty. They had once been friends, _but no longer_. _No longer. And it can be faulted not to my account. She has brought this about, for herself and for me._ Still, the coldness in her eyes, so unlike her, gave him reason for pause.

He had been silent too long, he realized, and the next moment Anne broke the suspension in the room. He could not tell whether she stepped or spoke first, but in three strides of her long legs she had crossed the room and had him by his ruffled collar. As she passed from regarding him in a queenly manner to invading his personal space, a demanding voice which he recognized from last summer filled the increasingly short space between them:

"I am the Queen of England; you will answer me; is it true?"

He barely stopped himself from reeling in surprise. Anne often argued, commanded, warned, and railed against people. But she had never, at least to his knowledge, acted this way with someone. She must be desperate. Even the transition that her voice took in the course of the sentence betrayed her frenzied state of mind: she declared that she was queen in a deep, harsh tone; commanded him to answer her in a frustrated command, emphasizing 'answer' just a trifle in a way that inferred her desperation; and finally, the desperation won over when her voice reached a crescendo as she demanded the truth from him.

Cromwell brought himself to meet her eyes, and again had to stop himself from reacting outwardly. Where they had at first been cold, now they were set aflame. This was the Anne Boleyn that he had remembered, but she was harder than ever he had seen her; the loss of her soft side would have been something to lament had it not been a useful piece of Cromwell's abhorrence of her. She was not afraid of him in that moment, just as he had no fear of her. As he realized this, there was a moment of a small amount of regret in the knowledge that he would shortly be disposing of her; this sort of bravery, combined with intelligence and wit, was a rare thing in a woman. Cromwell himself had said as much about Katherine of Aragon, that it was a pity she had not been a man. He had not thought that Anne had it in her, but then, fear and desperation bring out aspects of a person heretofore unrealized. Cromwell had to hand it to Henry: he chose, his potential third wife excepted, unusually strong women to love.

He proceeded with that same brand of neutrality which he trusted would carry him through the next weeks. "Yes, it is true," he responded in a low voice, hoping that she had to strain closer to hear him. He would not give her the privilege of easily getting anything from him.

Instantly a rosy hue flushed Anne's cheeks, livening her ivory face. Now her cheekbones matched her eyes. He kept his eyes on her face a moment, watching as the muscles around her mouth fought to stabilize themselves; or she was fighting them for the control which would allow her to remain facially impassive. Cromwell was close enough to see every aspect of her countenance, and it was both fascinating and amusing to see that the usually controlled Anne struggled with herself in this encounter. Cromwell actually watched as, in the space of a breath, Anne produced, considered, and discarded a million retorts and insults. She wanted to kill him, he realized as he met her eyes briefly again, and then the twitching of her reddened lips distracted him. Between the sides of her tall-crested collar he watched her swallow down enraged bile. That reminded him that her hand had balled the front of his collar and jacket into her fist, and this irritated him. His laundress laboured at length to press his ruffles to his specifications and brush the velvet of his jackets; how dare she sully them so? He pressed that thought from his mind, as he could hardly shove her away. He entertained for half a second the thought, as he was still staring at her neck – although his gaze was now at its base, where her collarbone created a round little crater each time it rose up in her efforts to compose herself with short deep breaths – of strangling her with one hand. Her neck was slender; his hands were large; it could be done in a minute. And it would feel spectacular. She was probably going to die anyway; how it would please the king to have it without weeks and documents and a messy annulment first. Yet of course this was not an option. So he pressed that thought from his mind too, ripping his eyes from her neck and also deciding his opinion on the fabric of her gown: expensive damask it may be, but unsuited for her it certainly was. And between the collar and the French hood, her hair – one of her best features – was hardly visible. She looked like a spinster, not a young woman that one would like to bed. For a woman as concerned with fashion and her appearance as the queen, she was not doing a wonderful job of projecting a fresh, fertile image of herself.

The queen spoke, finally trusting herself to do so, and dispelling the foglike tension that enveloped his office each time there was a silence between them. Tugging almost absentmindedly at the fabric of his clothing, Anne promised, "You have overreached yourself, Master Cromwell. Believe me, you have placed yourself in very great danger."

Her voice was softer now, and it reminded him of her lilting tone when she was engaged in normal conversation. How long had it been since she had been so with him? _God… years_. There was something different about the intimacy of her voice in comparison with her similar warnings last summer, and as he listened to her hushed voice he picked out the strain on the last two words: "great danger." It was desperation again. She was back to being afraid, or she had just failed to hide it well now, having perhaps been afraid this entire time. She had paused for a few seconds so that she could trust her voice not to shake. Cromwell felt the minutest crest of sympathy that she had to live in this sort of limbo, but then he reminded himself again that she had brought this on herself. As soon as Anne finished speaking, she left off yanking at his garments and roughly released him, allowing him to straighten up; he had angled his back forward just a trifle as a result of her tugging at him.

He was probably supposed to render an apology here, but he was not so inclined and at any rate, she would neither listen nor believe it. Instead, he periodically looked up at her and down at the floor, refusing to stare brazenly at her but also trying not to appear a coward.

_Answer me_, Anne demanded silently. His eyelashes kept sweeping down over his eyes as he refused to look at her, then uncovering them as he dared a glance at her face. Yet he was demurring, and he would not respond. Her body wanted desperately to shake; she was so angry, so unreasonably angry, that she actually had to will her hips to stand still lest these noisy shoes begin chattering like shivering teeth against Master Cromwell's stone floor. She needed to get away from him before she either lost her calm or did something she would regret, like shove him into the large fireplace against the opposite wall. But would she regret that? In a world where she would not be held responsible for her actions, no. Yet she had lost her hold on power… and with it the ability to get away with something of that nature. This unnerved her more than anything else. She felt her fingers begin to shake, and she subtly hid her hands behind her back, pretending that she was surveying her maids in her presence chamber. She stared at the smirk-lines around his mouth again. Her desire to strike him heightened with every tense, silent moment that passed. Then she concentrated on his mouth, praying, willing it to speak. Why would he not answer her? Did he not think she was entitled to a response? Her fingers shook harder as she resisted the urge to grab him again, shake some respect into him. Unlike Cromwell she could not take her eyes from her opponent's face; the fact that he did not deign to answer, in addition to not looking directly at her, frightened Anne even more because it meant that this argument meant more to her than it did to him. What did it mean that he would not speak to her? Was she not his queen? Her heart clenched at that, as she over-thought every possible implication of Cromwell's actions: his public disloyalty, his private indifference. Her nose tingled as it often did when her eyes were about to fill with tears, and she fought them down. Finally he did look up at her face, and held her gaze, but his eyes were expressionless.

The queen was trying to compose herself again, Cromwell realized. _She must truly be at her wit's end_. Without meaning to he locked eyes with her, willing his gaze to be as flat as possible. When she realized that he was not going to respond, she asked quietly, bluntly,

"Do you believe me?"

And her face was as open as he had ever seen it, as it had always been ten years ago, when she was the king's sweetheart and Cromwell a freelance executor of all tasks legal, administrative and creative. Before he had betrayed his cardinal and thrown down two saintly men of the Catholic faith, and before she had lost her virginity, her sons, her supporters, and the love of her husband. His face had been different then, too, he supposed. She had been ethereally beautiful, and now, although she was still beautiful, she had also lost her beauty. Her essence. Her nerve. And possibly her soul. As had he.

He _still_ would not answer? Who in God's blood did he think was addressing him? She wanted to scream, "_I am the Queen of England!_" and yet she had already informed him of that, and to no end. She changed tacks, and sought instead to challenge him. If an attack on his power did not provoke him to answer her, nothing would. In barely a breath's space since she closed her lips she spoke again: "Or do you assume that I no longer possess the power to crush you?"

He listened as she hardened her voice at the word "crush." Did everyone speak with such noticeable inflections? He wondered. Probably not; her face was a hand's width from his, so he was privy to every detail of her tirade. The muscles around her mouth had twisted as she tried to threaten him, which was ironic, and would have been funny if it were not her removal over which she was unknowingly arguing with him. He had never realized how expressive the muscles around a person's mouth could be – in fact, there was nothing attractive about the way hers had twisted. She looked cruel, and verging on ugly. He then realized that he was looking at her red lips, which had distracted him again as they formed the loaded word. 'Crush.' _Leave off, Anne_, he thought, tired enough to call her by her first name in his mind. How long had she been there? It could not have been more than a few minutes, but it felt as though they'd been racing from one end of the Strand to the other. She looked as tired as he felt. Why did she paint her lips such a color? It looked unnatural.

Cromwell forced himself to silence the answer that he, for the first time, wanted to deliver: "Forgive me, Your Majesty – but you do not." How spectacular it would be to say that. Her expression would be worth a thousand pounds. And that, Cromwell realized with a start, was the fun behind all this: fighting with Anne was a game. Although now the stakes were much more elevated than at any other time, alone in a stone-walled room they were the same adversaries that they had ever been. It was a choreographed dance, but he had shaken her by admitting that, yes, he had given up his rooms to her enemies. Yes, he favoured them. And no sooner did he startle her with those four words did he assume a strict policy of silence, which unnerved her all the more. He had achieved the advantage with this policy, and thus he must continue it. Whether she grabbed him again, which he wagered she would, or kicked, or screamed, or threw things, he would remain silent. He kept his head bowed and looked up at her, and was startled that her eyes looked glassy. _What the devil is wrong with her?_ He wondered briefly, as she stared him down. Then he realized that her body, despite her spirit, longed to weep. Cromwell congratulated himself on bringing her nearly to tears. He had come a long way. The next moment he was back to almost allowing a dash of compassion for her wretched emotional state to enter his mind, but again he stamped it out. He cared not to look at her then, and because it was a good focal point, he fixed his gaze, unseeing, back on her mouth.

Anne could hardly contain the quivering of her hands. She was near breaking. She feared that if she maintained her presence so close to Cromwell's person a tear would escape, unbidden, from her eyes. She must communicate that he must at once cease showing disrespect; how could he possibly know that Henry would not return to her? She would teach him a lesson. Even as she resolved this, the plan formed of its own volition in her mind: she would leave Cromwell with as much dignity as she could muster, return to her rooms, change her clothes, and go to visit her husband. She had no choice, no other option, than to entice him back to her, if not wholly than enough to bed him. At least then she could have the hope that she could restore her position; and a victorious end to an argument with Cromwell could be naught but good luck. She must conceive a child, she reminded herself, wondering where this determination had been for the past months. What was the matter with her? She felt a surge of courage. If Cromwell wished to remain silent, so be it. She would gladly have the last word. Not altering her stance at all, Anne tilted her head a trifle, just enough that Cromwell would notice.

He could smell her perfume, he realized. He had been wondering what smelled so… flowery. Womanly. There were certainly no dried flowers hanging about in his rafters, no incense, no sweetmeats to be found in Cromwell's office. In an absent corner of his mind – there were many corners of Cromwell's mind, all of which tended to work at once and produce their own separate thoughts and observances – ever since the queen had helped herself to a fistful of his jacket, Cromwell had noticed a pleasing aroma. Now he realized, thinking himself silly for not seeing the obvious, that Anne wore rosewater perfume, and that was what he smelled. It was a bit startling: it meant that he had never been this physically close to her before. He almost pitied her, that she had to shove herself into his presence in order to feel like someone was paying her any heed. And he was not taking the bait, which must have made it that much worse for her. She was again waiting for his answer, to no avail.

Suddenly, her stance still slightly to the right of his, she angled her head toward him, with no other movement save for a slight stiffening of her shoulders. He guessed that she was steeling herself, and without meaning to, he met her eyes once more.

"It would be an easy mistake to make, Master Cromwell," Anne remarked simply and then, to his surprise, she left. He almost jumped back as her face passed close to his as she turned her head to go; he could smell her perfume again as she whisked past him; and in case she looked back, he turned slightly away from the door. He did not know if she looked back; certainly, her steps did not check as she left his office. But then, Queen Anne would never be so thoughtless as to allow an adversary to see her weakness if she could help it. On the other hand… Cromwell's mind presented him with a quick flash of her blue eyes, their colour magnified by unshed tears, a glaze over them as thick as molten glass before it cools. At this, before he could stop himself, he turned his head to his right and watched as his office door swung closed behind her. He finally allowed the smile that had been begging for admission to cross his face. He had won.

In the corridor just outside Master Cromwell's office, Anne took a moment to compose herself, although she treaded in place so it would sound like she was still retreating. It was quite a nuisance to have such noisy shoes, she complained inwardly. Anne pressed her hands to her hips through her full skirts, tightening the muscles of her legs in an attempt to warm and stabilize them. She must not go out in public looking distraught. She put a hand to her brow, pressing the length of her index finger to her forehead. She rolled her lips inward, pressed them together, released and licked them. She drew in a deep breath, released it also. Last of all she unlaced her cramped fingers, shook them out, and rolled her head from side to side before straightening her collar and hood. All the while she was willing the knot in her empty stomach, which had been borne of vicious anger but had morphed into a curious mixture of fear and desperation, and now consisted also of triumph and courage, to disperse. She must be calm, she reasoned. She had held her own. And she had won. Satisfied that she looked every inch a queen, Anne took a real step forward, then another, and soon reached Cromwell's audience chamber, where the clerks would be waiting. At the last moment before she pushed open the door, Anne unconsciously brought her right index finger to her eye and caught the solitary tear as it threatened to mar her otherwise serene face. She smiled brightly at Cromwell's clerks who were clustered about in the room. In unison they removed their caps and pressed them to their hearts. "Your Majesty," they chorused.

Anne waited until the room was still, the men all having sunk to one knee, their heads bowed to her. When Cromwell's clerks looked like a dozen scattered sculptures paying obeisance, she stepped forward, her copper shoes making the only sound in the chamber. And suddenly she loved how loud they were.

"Gentlemen," she returned kindly.

Hope you enjoyed!

**UP NEXT: **Queen, King, Maid and Secretary. Gowns, shouting, crying and lying. A delightful chapter, to be sure!

"Tell the queen," the king said again, "that I will not see her. She may appeal neither in written form, nor through a servant. She is to keep her peace and mind her own affairs." He leaned in for the last bit, which he, sinister, whispered. "And I care not a whit whether she protests."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** All sorts of fun going on here! We get to see some annoyed Henry, some (more) scheming Cromwell, and for good measure, just a touch more Daniel!

It may be annoying that we are still in the same day where we started four chapters ago, but I promise it is worthwhile (relax and settle in, we'll be here for at least two chapters more). This opening day is a big one. There will be lots of days that will go much, much more quickly… but the summary says 'intimate,' so intimacy is what I shall give to you!

Thanks again to all of my reviewers! I appreciate you so much! MrsPhantomSylvia, I can always count on you for a smile :)! As my first reviewer I will always have a special gratefulness for you! Pandora, I'm glad you used the word 'intense' – that's definitely what that confrontation scene is in the series, and my goal was to add depth to it and use that to build the rest of the plot (that scene is a big part of what inspired this story, to be honest). Nat, I DEFINITELY was going for funny! There will be more dry humour in this story, I promise you. My goal is to make my readers laugh out loud a time or two before the story's up. And WhenThePawn, I appreciate your comments so much – your Cromwell is beautifully developed, and I hope to do the same with mine, and my Anne too (both difficult characters to write in-depth, I'd say).

I hope that we all enjoy this chapter, and welcome to all new readers! Do leave a review – getting those little email notifications is surprisingly gratifying :)

19 April 1536 – Afternoon

Nan threw aside her sewing as she heard the queen's shoes echoing closer and closer and then, as she knew it would please Her Majesty, she sank into a deep curtsy before Anne entered the room. She had stood too quickly, though, and it was difficult to keep her balance when she sank so low. As the queen reentered her apartments, Nan begged her silently to address her so that she could stand.

Anne obliged quickly. "Nan," she murmured, smiling at nothing in particular. "Come with me."

Nan straightened gratefully and glided after her mistress. "Are you all right, Your Majesty?" she ventured.

"Of course. Why ever not?" Anne threw over her left shoulder.

"I just…" Nan faltered, not sure how to proceed without insulting her queen. "I just wondered whether Your Majesty had taken care of your… your personal matter." By this point they had reached the queen's bedchamber, and Anne flicked a hand to indicate that Nan should close the door behind them. When the younger woman turned around, it was to find her queen gazing levelly at her. "My lady?"

"Nan," Anne smirked a little, making Nan uncomfortable. "Have you noticed a certain… sparseness in the queen's apartments of late?" She was referring of course to the silence that had settled over Anne's household in the last months, which at present was especially evident, as Nan was the only person who remained. Mistress Seymour was walking by the river; Madge and all the others were in attendance. Nan had narrowed her eyes and shaken her head at Mistress Shelton, whose puppy-dog facial response indicated to Nan that she herself would be the sole faithful servant of Her Majesty. _Let the others abandon her_, Nan had thought, half-furiously, half-sorrowfully, as she stabbed the linen with her needle. Something in her had faith that the queen's relationship with her husband would mend. And even if it did not, how could her ladies betray her so? They had sworn an oath to serve the queen, and the queen alone, and until Anne Boleyn was formerly removed from that position Nan promised herself that she would stand firmly by her side. The fact that others would not genuinely upset her.

At Nan's silence, Anne continued. "Strange, is it not? I am the Queen of England, and my sole loyal servant must keep company with books and furniture because her colleagues would rather attach themselves to a little blonde fool from the country." Anne's smirk twitched deeper. "Well, Nan, you have the privilege of helping me with a special task."

At this Nan smiled. Her Majesty's 'tasks' were never dull. She curtsied again, a shallow bob this time. "It would be my pleasure to assist Your Majesty," she assured Anne truthfully. Nan idolized her mistress. She was everything that a woman might hope to be: beautiful, wise, worldly, intelligent, steadfast, brave, loyal, loving, and kind. "How may I help?"

Turning away from Nan, the queen sauntered across her bedchamber toward her standing wardrobe. When almost there, Anne turned back to Nan, and this time her smile was beaming. "Nan, I am to visit the king."

Nan was surprised, but dared not show it. Their Majesties had not seen each other in… days. Weeks? Nan was not sure. But it had been quite some time. There had been no banquets, no occasions which would precipitate a meeting. The king sent the odd message of goodwill, which Anne returned with heartfelt eagerness, but there was nothing beyond that. The king did not want to see his wife, it was obvious. He was taken with Mistress Seymour and had no further use for his current queen. And now Anne was to see him? Nan said a swift, silent prayer that this visit had been requested or at least agreed to.

"I am to visit His Majesty," Anne repeated, happily, as though she had never thought of it before. "I have not seen my husband in some time, and I have resolved to visit him and speak with him. There are matters between us that must be discussed, for the preservation of our love." The queen nodded, sealing the statement. Nan was very uneasy. This implied that the king had no foreknowledge of his wife's visit, and Nan guessed that he would be less content about the prospect than Anne was. For heaven's sake, he knew where to find Mistress Seymour well enough. If he had wanted to see his wife, he would have seen her.

But none of this was Nan's place, either to say or to think. Her former prayer having been denied, she prayed now that the visit would at least go well. "How may I assist Your Majesty?"

"There are two matters which require your services," Anne smiled. "Would you first, and quickly, go to find a groom and send a message to my husband that I will be visiting, so that he may prepare himself and if necessary, reply as to the most favourable hour?"

"Of course." Nan bobbed again and hurried from the room. She did not have to go far outside Anne's private chambers to find a groom, who seemed to be searching also. "Sir," Nan bowed her head, "Would you please deliver a message to His Majesty? His wife would like to visit with him this afternoon, and she inquires as to the best hour."

The young man nodded. "Yes, madam." He then withdrew from his jacket a folded letter with just a splotch of wax gluing it closed. The parchment was small, and only folded once, the two outside fourths meeting in the front. Nan could not guess who it could be from. "And would you please deliver this to Her Majesty?"

Nan accepted the note. "Yes. Who sent it to my lady?"

The man shrugged. "I know not," he said. "Probably a note from Archbishop Cranmer about an ecclesiastical appointment or the like." Then he was gone. _Then where is the seal?_ Nan asked him silently. Puzzling over the note which she held gingerly, Nan reentered Anne's bedchamber.

"Majesty, I have sent a page to inform His Majesty of your-" Nan stopped short on the threshold. In the space of the two minutes of Nan's absence, a storm of clothing had erupted in the queen's room. Dresses of all colours and fabrics were draped across the bed, chairs, and chests. Pairs of shoes lurked here and there, and underskirts of various thicknesses and amounts of ruffles bubbled up against the shore of Anne's pillows. At the center of it all, Anne stood, holding gently a white corset with red dangling laces.

"I decided to change my gown," Anne explained. "This is your other task: help me choose." She gestured at the ocean of textiles and gems surrounding her. A giggle rose from Nan.

"Yes, my lady."

Several minutes later, still in her original outfit, Anne stood in front of her full-length gilded mirror with Nan holding up a creamy satin gown. Its colour was not merely cream, though; it was a pretty mixture of lightest pink, softest peach, and bronze sand too. Its sleeves bunched once just past the shoulders and again above the elbow, then billowed into bells which would accent the queen's arms gracefully. At the end of the sleeves, as well as overlaying the low-cut bodice, was Venetian lace that matched perfectly the shade of the satin. Anne wrinkled her nose. "It makes me look pale," she whined.

"Nay, my lady! It is the perfect shade for your hair and skin," Nan protested. Helping Anne Boleyn dress for years had taught her which colours best adorned the woman, and she and her queen both knew that the dress would never have been ordered if it were not becoming. "We will unplait your hair and take up the sides with pearls, add a pearl necklace. You will look as you did all those years ago in Paris," Nan suggested helpfully. She knew that the queen missed her time in France, and the dress was in the French fashion, after all.

Warming to the idea, Anne smiled a little at her reflection, then turned slightly to one side and the other as though imagining the ensemble. Nan rotated the dress along with Anne's body, angling it so that Anne could fully appreciate the ribbon embellishments: bows with dangling tails on the gathering at the elbows and a delicate band woven through the neckline. "What shoes?" Anne asked, on the edge of being persuaded.

Nan draped the gown carefully on the bed behind her, then waded through the pool of garments which had collected on the floor even since she had arrived. "What of the ones that Your Majesty is wearing?" she asked over her shoulder as she reached for a pair of slippers. If the queen were going to seduce her husband, as Nan had an inkling that she was, she wondered whether she should wear soft, unobtrusive shoes.

Anne shook her head. "They are much too loud." She kicked a foot out from under her skirts. "And too dark. I need something lighter."

Nan held up the slippers, a creamy pair sewn with pearls, and a pair with heels in pure white. "Which?" She cursed herself at her informality, but in these moments with the queen they both tended to forget protocol.

Anne looked from the gown to the shoes and back again. "The slippers," she affirmed. "Well done."

"And does Your Majesty plan to wear… that corset?" Nan asked cautiously, gesturing to the garment. It was the one that Her Majesty had been wearing the last time that she had lain with her husband, a fact which Nan was embarrassed to admit that she knew. It was difficult not to, when one undressed one's mistress each night before bed. The king and queen had not bedded for many months. Perhaps Her Majesty thought it would bring her luck.

Anne's eyes followed her servant's. "Yes."

There was a long pause, both women gazing at the garment. Nan was concerned about the royal visit, but would not say it. Anne was desperate that Henry would be pleased to see her, but would not say it. With both of their eyes still on the corset, Anne suddenly asked, "Now, what of my hair?"

"Loose, unplaited, and we'll put some pearls in it," replied Nan, staring at the corset. "Your Majesty will be a goddess."

The queen swiveled her head toward Nan, a modest smile enveloping her face. "Thank you, Nan," she whispered. A moment of genuine affection passed between them; they were partners. Still smiling, Anne picked her way to a chair in front of her mirror, slid the black velvet robe that hung on it onto the floor, and sat down. Nan followed and found a comb while Anne kicked off her shoes and peeled off her stockings. Brazen though it was, Anne planned to go to her husband bare-legged. What was the harm? No one would ever know but the two of them.

Nan brandished the comb artistically, then tucked it into her dress and fluttered her fingers above the queen's coif. Her amused smile met Anne's in the mirror. "How many pins d'you think we put in today?" Nan laughed.

"Thousands," Anne groaned, remembering her own insistence that her hair be immaculate and Nan's determined stabbing of the royal scalp in an effort to carry out those orders. "But," she added, turning her head from side to side, "I cannot see a single one. Pity that they should come out so soon."

"Pity indeed," murmured Nan, trying to choose which pin to take out first. Her fingers delved into Anne's hair and found one near the top of the coif. She pulled it out, but there was no discernable change. Laughing, she flourished it. "One!"

Anne took a sip of wine from the goblet on her dressing table. "One," she agreed.

At that moment footsteps sounded in the royal apartments, and Anne perked up. "Go and see," she told Nan, who was already lifting her skirts to cross the mountains of clothes. Her face still flushed with laughter and merriment, Nan exited the chamber and found the groom to whom she had given the queen's message.

"Sir?"

"I have a message from the king," he stated unnecessarily.

"Yes?"

"His Majesty says that he will not be able to see his wife this afternoon. He is occupied. She is to keep to her business and not visit him."

Nan's mouth dropped open. She had not imagined that Henry would be thrilled at the prospect of Anne's presence, but to deny her so unequivocally? "His Majesty-"

"His Majesty will not see me?"

Nan whirled as she heard a small voice from the threshold of Anne's doorway. Anne peeked her head around the frame, her face as open as Nan had ever seen it. The groom bowed. All was silent.

"He will not receive me?" Anne demanded. "Why?"

"His Majesty sends Your Majesty word that he is occupied," repeated the groom apologetically. Suddenly, Nan recalled the slip of paper that he had given her last time. It had completely flown her mind when the tidal wave of velvet and satin had sucked her into Anne's bedchamber. Now she extracted it and hurried to Her Majesty, holding it out.

"My lady, I am so sorry. I forgot that I had received this for you." Anne took the message, barely seeing it, so flattened was she by Henry's rejection.

Her slender fingers slid under the loose edge of the paper, and she broke the wax. Holding up the paper, Anne's blue eyes flitted over the words perfunctorily, and then she shook her head minutely and read it again. And again. She bit her lip. Her eyes grew hard, and her reddened lips moved a bit as she read the note more slowly still. At length she drew her eyes up to meet those of Nan, who had been standing, nervously wringing her hands. "Where did you get this?" she asked softly.

"That groom handed it to me before," Nan admitted. "I forgot. I am sorry, Your Majesty."

"It's all right, Nan," Anne said, not hearing herself. "How long ago?" Her words were careful.

Nan paused. How long had they been swimming in gowns? "When last he was here. A quarter hour."

Anne nodded. "I see." She looked around and found the groom, who had been backing away, as his presence was clearly inappropriate during a personal moment between the queen and one of her servants. "You," Anne blurted. "You gave my maid this note?"

"Yes," the groom said, innocently.

"Where did you get it?" Anne's tone was flat.

"A maid handed it to me, she said that she had been ordered to deliver it to someone who would see Her Majesty."

"When?"

"Within the past hour," he recalled.

There was a long, unbearable, silence. Anne inspected his face; he was telling the truth. Nan would never lie to her. Someone had written this to her. And Henry would not see her.

Nan watched Anne's face carefully. There was no hint of emotion there, just shock. The queen was as a ghost. Finally, with a touch of hardness to her voice, Anne turned back to the groom and said quietly, "You are to go to the king and tell him that I absolutely must see him at once. It is no light matter. I am his wife and I need an audience with him. Tell him that it is a topic of great importance. Go at once." The groom bowed and scurried off with appropriate haste, leaving Anne to stare at Nan. She turned wordlessly and reentered her bedchamber, and Nan followed, knowing it was what her mistress wanted.

Anne turned to her once the door was closed. "He will not see me," she said numbly. "He… I cannot think why." She raised her eyes to Nan's, asking for an explanation. Nan was silent. "I have done nothing wrong. I cannot think why." She took to pacing, gliding effortlessly over the mounds of clothing on her floor. She picked at her lower lip with her thumb and first finger. Nan just watched. She had seen this Anne before, many times. It was better to stay out of it. What the devil did that letter say?

Henry raked his hands through his hair and sighed. God's blood, Anne was reminding him more of Katherine every day. Save that Katherine was no witch. But his present wife now bore all the infuriating qualities of her predecessor: she was nagging, demanding, oblivious to his feelings toward her. He turned back to the groom, who was waiting anxiously.

"Tell the queen," Henry rumbled, "that I have no time for her matter today. I am completely occupied." With that, he turned to staring out his window.

"Majesty," said the groom, bowing. He meant it obediently, but Henry heard it mistakenly – or perhaps deliberately – as questioningly. He was on his feet in an instant, across the room in three strides, and had the servant by the coat.

"You mean to question me?" Henry thundered. "How dare you. I am your lord and master. You have no authority to doubt or do absolutely any other than obey without question my every order." He shook the boy, who was trying not to tremble. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," the boy choked out.

"Now," Henry shook him again. "I mean you to understand that I will _not_ receive the queen today, under any circumstances. My schedule is entirely full and I have no time for an audience. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded again, much too afraid to look at anything but the floor.

"Tell the queen," the king said again, "that I will not see her. She may appeal neither in written form, nor through a servant. She is to keep her peace and mind her own affairs." He leaned in for the last bit, which he, sinister, whispered. "And I care not a whit whether she protests." Henry looked the boy in the face. "Have you got it?" When the boy nodded again, Henry shoved him backward to release him and turned on his heel to resume his garden-gazing. The boy stumbled back, surprised, tangled his boot in the fringe of the carpet, and tripped, landing half-sprawled, half-kneeling.

Henry did not turn from his chair. "Get out."

Standing in waiting, unobtrusive and entirely forgotten, Daniel extended a hand to the groom and silently helped him to his feet. The boy was younger than he, and visibly shaken. Daniel brushed the boy's left shoulder, the velvet of which was rumpled. The boy bowed his head in thanks and scrambled from the room to deliver to Queen Anne the news that her husband definitely did not want to see her.

Daniel watched him go, imagining the scene which would unfold in Queen Anne's apartments upon the reception of this piece of news. He wondered whether she would react with anger or sadness. He imagined that she might weep. This visual image unnerved him: the thought of the lovely queen, her blue eyes enormous, weeping into one graceful white hand. Would she possess that feminine ability to cry without making noise, or would she wail? He hoped she would not cry out. To imagine her thus made him shudder, as he knew that her urgent response to her husband was probably an effect of a scrap of paper, a message on which was written by his own hand. Daniel glanced over at the back of the king's head, still as a statue, as his wife had been that night that she waited for him at the banqueting table, years ago. Henry stared through the glass panes at the unremarkable day. The sunlight was neither translucent nor golden; there was no pleasing breeze to ruffle prettily the new buds and greenery whose lush leaves filled out the profile of the royal gardens; even the sky gave a meager effort to be any discernible shade of blue. Daniel could not have known that Henry was staring toward the riverbank because he knew that Mistress Seymour strolled there, and the king would have sacrificed any one of his servants to the flames to join her. Despite what Daniel did know, there were many, many things that he did not know.

In coming days, he would ask himself a million times whether he had done the right thing. In coming weeks, he would become increasingly indecisive about the same. In coming years, he would find that no matter what he felt about the morality of his decision, his mind still came back to the question of whether the queen had raged, wailed or cried silent tears that afternoon.

Cromwell sat still in his chair, leaning back just enough that the front legs lifted off the stone floor. His hands cradled the back of his head, his usually busy fingers knotting lazily in his short hair. Only the balls of his feet touched the floor, and he stretched the muscles of his lower legs as he stared into the distance, reliving his triumph over the queen a few hours before. The most wonderful memory was that he had almost seen the all-powerful Anne reduced to tears. He wondered how it would have felt to see her cry, and thought on it only a moment before deciding that it would have been glorious.

On the other hand, the fact that she had been unable to control herself to that extent could also translate to serious problems for Cromwell and his mission: not only was Anne truly concerned, but she also strongly suspected that some conspiracy was afoot. He wondered where she had run off to with such conviction after her departure. Probably Henry. Who, unless Cromwell missed his guess, would have shut her out of his apartments with brutal finality. The secretary rolled his eyes, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He was not nearly through with Anne, which meant that he could not allow himself a smile. When she was gone, then he could smile. Until then she was to be regarded as his adversary, and evaluated carefully and often.

In the next moment he was on his feet, moving to the main door of his office and facing his desk. He retraced Anne's steps: in, toward the desk, in front of the desk; off toward the window at the right, then back into the center, and finally, back toward the door through which she first came. How many times had she been in this office? Very few.

Cromwell stood still in the center of his office, his hands on his hips. What capabilities did she have? What allies? None, save the circle of adoring young men who doted on her in her husband's stead. Very little capacity to put up any sort of veritable defense against his own plan of attack. Still… Cromwell could not help but turn his head to look at the note from Henry, which still lay in plain view on his desk. The king was the key to this whole matter, as he was in every other. Anne's dreadful thinness and sad blue eyes might very well annoy and depress Henry today, but they could enflame his sympathy and lust just as easily tomorrow. And then where would Cromwell be? Discredited, demoted, destroyed, by Anne Boleyn. Just like his cardinal.

He could just imagine the conversation between king and secretary:

"Cromwell, our most dear and entirely beloved wife, the queen, has informed me that you used toward her many impertinent phrases and showed her little respect last week."

"Majesty, Her Majesty and I may differ in our recollections of that conversation."

"Master Secretary, do you mean to insinuate that my wife has fabricated the disrespectful manner that you bear toward her?"

He would barely be able to stop himself responding, _No, Your Majesty, only that your wife gives as well as she gets. _Instead, he would have to swallow his pride and bear Henry's displeasure, which could last a minute or a lifetime. Bow respectfully to that shrew with her smug smirk and her dark hair and her threadlike waist – what sort of Englishman found that attractive, anyway? – and bear Henry's annoyance, risk losing his trust, forfeit his hard-won progress and power. Like Therouanne or Boulougne. By Christ, he would not let it happen.

Cromwell realized that he had begun to pace, picking at his lower lip with his fingernails. What he needed was an angle. Madame Sorrow must be irreparably damaged in the king's eyes. She had, in fact, done most of the work toward that end already: no sons, two miscarriages, lots of complaining. But what was it about her, what facet of her, that would insure the suit against her?

Perhaps she had hinted at a pregnancy which would be false. Henry would hate that. "How dare that woman propagandize about the son who would secure the safety of this realm?" he would bellow. Anne would try to protest that she had never started such a rumour, but Henry's pride would be so damaged that the whole of Europe was again laughing at him that it would not matter. And yet, it was too risky. From whence would the rumour come? This was too easily traced. The information would have to come from inside the queen's apartments, and there stood Mistress Seymour, and Henry would no more suffer any hint of suspicion about her honesty and purity than he would the pregnancy-fabricating wife herself.

Suppose she had lovers? Scads of lovers. All sorts; she was not choosy. All those simpering men under her spell were also under her skirts. Cromwell licked his lips unconsciously. This was good. In one fell swoop he could eliminate Anne and all of those pesky fair-weather champions of hers. Brand the Princess Elizabeth a bastard, the marriage null, and give Henry a fresh start with Jane, all the while ingratiating himself to His Majesty. This was very good. But in the next moment the problems surfaced: still traceable; also endangering the king's reputation abroad, as it would brand him a cuckold; doesn't take care of Wiltshire and Rochford.

With a start, Cromwell realized that in one turnover he had changed from planning the death-nail of Anne's queenship to, more literally, choosing the death-nail of her very life. He had not meant to do that, he assured himself. He wanted her out of the way, that was all. He just needed Henry to hate her – not just resent her, not just be sick of her, but _hate_ her. Hate her to the extent that he would never hear a kind word for her again. Sighing, Cromwell thought to himself, _This may be more difficult than I thought_ – but then the thought dawned on him that he needed create no deception. He would simply tell the king the truth: Anne was a suspicious, conniving, out-of-line woman who had impinged upon the king's Secretary and tried to impede his business. A vague revelation here, an ambiguous account of the conversation there, and by God, the king would be livid with his wife. Cromwell would do exactly what Anne would do; he would just do it first. Much as Henry had loved Anne's passion, conviction, and spirit, he hated when a woman would not accept her place. Spun the right way, Anne's scene in Cromwell's office this afternoon would be the damning last piece of the picture-puzzle. Now, not only was Anne a failure at producing an heir, a disappointment in queenly dignity and personality, and a letdown in proving herself in any way superior to her predecessor, she was also trying to obstruct Cromwell's, and by extension Henry's, business. This would unnerve and enrage the king. It was perfect.

Cromwell's eyes flashed to his desk, and his robes flared out behind him as he abruptly headed back to his chair. A passive look on his face – as though he was about to count the silver after a banquet – he dipped his quill with his left hand and brought in front of him with his right hand the piece of parchment which would carry the letter to Henry that would secure his triumph over Anne Boleyn.

"Your Magnificence," Cromwell tested out, his lips forming the word as his precise fingers conjured it on the parchment. "It pains me, your most humble and obedient servant, to be of responsibility to inform you…"

He remembered the first time he had met Anne Boleyn, the king's lady-love. He had been a bit startled. Lovely, perhaps – but not the most beautiful woman in the world. No chest. Cromwell remembered that specifically, and it was still true. It had surprised him – he was told that Katherine of Aragon, Anne Stafford, Lizzie Blount, Mary Boleyn, were all well-endowed. What was it that had drawn Henry to this wraith, with her clear eyes and thin figure?

"… but Her Majesty stubbornly refused to abate in her disrespect of my private papers which, as Your Majesty well knows, contain confidential sums and notes concerning the well-being of the realm, which…"

Anne loved to dance, he had been told. And she was good. He had not believed it until he had witnessed it. She had been trained in France, true. He had seen French dancers – to be plain, he had seen all sorts of dancers, from Spanish senoritas to Eastern temptresses. _Perhaps she is graceful_, he had thought to himself. _Graceful I have seen._ And graceful he had seen. But Anne he had not. There was a specific grace to her, a certain aura about her – as though she was at once a child dancing to a fiddler on the corner in Cheapside, an experienced court performer preparing to impress a bevy of royal patrons, and a young girl partnering her lover. She looked as though she were dancing impromptu, even when one had watched her rehearse the steps, and even teach them, for hours. One could not tear their eyes from her when she was on the floor of the banqueting hall, twirling, leaping, her eyes ablaze, her cheeks flushed. No, it was not that one could not tear one's eyes from her; it was that one's eyes saw no one else.

"… it is also with regret that I describe to Your Majesty the nature of the threats which the queen made directly to and against my person…"

The only time that Cromwell had ever seen Anne thicker than a sapling and without a baby in her belly was directly after the birth of her daughter. Healthy, pleased in spite of her disappointment, plump, glowing, Anne looked enthralled and worried when Master Secretary had come to pay his respects to her and the new Princess one evening after the gushing courtiers had taken their leave. Anne should not have been out of bed, but her maids had mostly gone, save for Nan Saville, who was hardly going to press her mistress back against the pillows, the poor admiring child. Anne was luminescent in a black velvet dressing gown over her shift and opened the door herself, perhaps hoping that it was her husband who came to call. A guard tried to protest, but it was not yet dark outside and Anne clucked her tongue. "Pray, I may have one visitor, yes?" she chided the young guard. "I am not a nun. I am a mother." Her eyes lit with the last word, and she turned her shining face on Cromwell's exhausted one, moving aside to let him in. He faced her, spoke kindly to her, inquired after the newborn's health. She answered him with equal courtesy, her hands folded demurely in front of her rounded belly. Finally, when no formalities remained to them, Anne flicked her eyes sideways and they retreated toward a window seat. The first hint of stars began to appear in the sky. Cromwell took Anne's hand, helping her sit down carefully. He wondered whether she was sore.

"The king was disappointed," Anne whispered, gazing out the panes. "As I. But…" she looked longingly in the direction of the nursery, where another woman nursed her child, leaving Anne's milk to disappear. "But I love her." Barely audible. Of course she loved her daughter. She sounded guilty for loving her first-born. There would be others, he wanted to assure her, but before he could, she cradled her hand around her swollen midsection. "I love her, and I will love the sons that I have. I want the next baby to be soon. The king's disappointment…" she shook her head. "I am afraid that it will lessen his love for me." She had turned her eyes on him, probably realizing that she had said far too much to this man who had been a personal friend but now existed more as a political ally. They were not close. Cromwell had been unsure of what to say. He had not intended to become a counselor to a sentimental woman. New mothers were always like this; he remembered from his own Elizabeth. Anne's fears may have been more justified, but that did not mean that Thomas Cromwell was eager to console a woman who was not his wife. And yet. And yet before he knew it, his hand had snaked out of his own lap, across the empty space between them, and slid between her clasped ones. He folded his hand over her smaller, thinner, more lovely one, and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. At the gesture, he remembered as he sat there at his desk years later, he saw her pulse speed up. He watched the throbbing of her jugular quicken through the thin skin of her neck, almost translucent in the early twilight. Anne's eyes, startled, dropped to their hands, together against her black velvet, and then flicked up to meet his. Her lips parted in earnest, begging him to speak. She looked so fragile that it almost pained him, until he remembered that her pain was as political as it was personal. But she needed reassurance, and for the moment he would give it to her. His left hand came to meet the other three, pressing itself against her exposed knuckles. His eyes never left her face.

"All will be well. Have faith."

Cromwell said the words aloud, then prayed to God he had not begun to write them down. By Christ, if he had to start this letter over. But the paper was devoid of any endearing memories. He breathed out. And the same way that he had nodded once at her, showing her a moment of a smiling Thomas Cromwell, and left her sitting, smiling too, on the windowseat that night, he left her now for good as he penned the words which, failing all else, would turn Henry's heart against her.

"…Yet the most painful revelation is transcribed hereafter. Majesty, forgive me. The queen also made ill mention of the relations and person of the right virtuous, chaste and entirely honourable Mistress Seymour…"

He remembered the almost-teary departure of the anointed queen of England. _You have overreached _your_self,_ he thought. _You know not your place, Madame. It is unfortunate that we have been made enemies, but it is you and you alone who have placed yourself in this very _great_ danger_. He imagined telling Anne this, saying these words to her face. She would probably slap him. He would not feel it. He would only feel the rush of victory in his veins, the taste for which he had developed over three decades ago in France, and in Italy, and everywhere. The satisfaction of glory in battle. It was delectable. He would never lose his taste for it.

"…And thus, Majesty, it is with humility that I beseech Your Majesty's pardon for these truths, but I beg Your Majesty in this matter to have a care for the necessity of confidentiality in mine own affairs, which are thine. I request that Your Majesty please warn Her Majesty against intruding upon Your Majesty's personal servants in the future…"

He signed the letter, boldly, Thomas Cromwell. Sand. A puff of breath. A splotch of wax. A seal. It was done. _You know not your place, Madame. But mayhap you soon will._

Nan sat staring, teary-eyed, at her sewing. Once again alone in the queen's rooms, she wondered what had happened to the safe, cheerful court that she had once known. The other ladies were still strolling the banks with Mistress Seymour, and the queen had run off again, probably to try one last desperate time for an audience with her husband. Anne Boleyn begging admittance to His Majesty's chambers was unnatural. Anyone but Anne standing at the center of the court was unnatural. An empty presence chamber, save for one quiet maid, who could barely make a stitch because her tears blurred her vision, was unnatural. But, of course, Nan had no control over any of this.

Setting aside her embroidery, Nan slowly got to her feet. She tried to stop her fingers trembling, but she could not, so instead she folded her hands and placed them at the juncture of her skirts and her bodice. She moved uncertainly toward the window of the chamber, looking out at the rather bleary day. For late April, there was surprisingly little sunshine. Nan strained forward against the glass, but her young eyes could detect no sign of the traitorous ladies-in-waiting or the king's new sweetheart through the awakening trees at the skirt of the palace gardens. The thought occurred to her that they might be on their way back to the queen's apartments, and she decided that a bedchamber strewn with garments was perhaps not the most meet sight to greet them – or anyone else, the queen included, for that matter. Now with purpose, Nan turned on her heel and advanced toward Anne's bedchamber to set things to rights there. The velvet-heaped floor still succeeded in stopping her in her tracks, and when Nan saw the lovely French gown into which Anne had wanted to change, the tears spilled onto her cheeks. Whether they were tears of failure, or of fear, or just of confusion at the new state of things, Nan could not be sure. In an odd way, despite Anne's private unrest, Nan wished her mistress back into her own apartments; for, despite the circumstances, Nan had always preferred to be in the company of her mistress than out of it. There was always something to expect, to enjoy, to occupy one's mind, with Anne.

Wiping one straight sleeve across her cheeks, Nan sniffled a bit and rolled her eyes at her own emotions. _No man will have me at this rate; any time that anyone sees me, I am either standing around looking like a mute field mouse or have the appearance that something is dreadfully wrong._ Lifting the hem of her skirts, Nan climbed once again over the plateau – for the top of the piles had flattened – of clothing on the floor, deciding to begin at the vanity table before which the queen sat when Nan plaited or unplaited her hair. Placing the ivory combs and gem-encrusted hair ornaments back into their designated drawers and containers, Nan kept an eye on her nose in the mirror. It remained reddened, that singularly unattractive shade of pinkish that mottles one's nose while weeping but almost never naturally graces one's cheeks. She prayed that it would disappear before anyone saw her.

Finally, the vanity table was clear, and Nan knelt to collect the black robe that Anne had slid onto the floor when she collapsed in the little chair. Shaking it out, Nan held up the garment to turn it right-side out, and something fell from it and landed on the vanity table. Draping the robe over an arm, Nan retrieved the object: a hair pin. The single hair pin that she had removed from the queen's hair before the groom had come back to tell the unfortunate woman that her husband would not see her. It was a true testament to how quiet the queen's apartments were that Nan had even heard the pin hit the table, the tiny _ping_ actually noticeable in the empty rooms. Nan glanced up again. Her nose was still red. She stuck the pin into her own hair, for lack of a better place to put it, and began tossing other garments over her arm along with the robe until she had a mound of expensive fabrics covering her plain beige sleeve. Moving carefully toward the bed, onto which she intended to deposit the clothes for sorting, Nan's slippered foot felt something lumpy underneath its toes. She would never manage to sort this mess of a room out, she thought, feeling with her free hand toward the floor. She pulled up this second object and, upon glancing at it, began to laugh. It began as a giggle, but soon the back of her left hand, in which she held the garment, was pressed against her mouth to stifle her laughter. The item was the queen's stocking and garter ribbon, perfectly matched to the copper heels which the queen must have put on before running out of the royal apartments again. Queen Anne, fashion icon, fastidious dresser, had run out to try to save her marriage in such a haste that she had left her stockings behind and was probably at this very moment arguing with a man, in one capacity or another, without that man knowing that beneath his lovely queen's skirts, her legs were blatantly bare. Even in her absence, Nan's mistress had the power to occupy, entertain, and cheer her. Nan managed to stop her giggling and glanced once more in the mirror to see that her eyes were bright and the pink tint had abandoned her nose in favour of her cheeks.

Hope you enjoyed immensely – and if not, this chapter is worth suffering through for all the fun that's coming after!

**UP NEXT: **

You know what, I am not going to tell you much of what's next. I think it's better as a surprise. But I leave you with this assurance: it's good. Happy first of October!


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Hello, all! Time for the second confrontation (for fun, let's keep a tally, as there will be several!) – I hope you all enjoy it : )

I have planned this chapter as a sort of short teaser, although it's not that SHORT, in effect. If anyone feels like clamouring, I will probably put the rest of this chunk up within the next day or two. Please leave a review if you'd like, I'd love to hear from you : )

Nat, Thank you so much for your compliment on the Anne/Cromwell scene from earlier! I appreciate it and your continued reviews so much : )

Sandrine, I'm so glad you liked it! Your Anne/Cromwell work is an inspiration. You should put them up on FanFiction, you'd have a huge following in no time!

MrsPhantomSylvia, What can I say? I love you and your reliability, as always!

PS: I swear my formatting is nicer before I hit 'publish.' I'm going to insert some breaks in the future so we can tell where we are switching POVs. Sorry if it has been confusing at all!

PPS: I feel like it's time for a disclaimer renewal. I don't own _The Tudors_.

19 April 1536 – Late Afternoon

i.

She had done it before; she had done this all before. Her heart was pounding with the rhythm of her desperation. She prayed that no one would be able to see the movement in her gown. Shoulders squared, sweeping down the long stone corridor, she nodded her head sideways to each cluster of courtiers who bowed down to her and remained, reverent, in her wake. She could hardly bear the fact that she was doing this, and yet, what other choice did she have? What other course of action could she possibly take? Her marriage and her position teetered on the brink of hell at present. She could do nothing else.

The servant saw her coming, and at his hesitation, she felt a white hot ball of anger grip her stomach. She did not check or slow her pace, and she met his eyes; predictably, he shoved the great doors open and allowed her entrance. In a less than magnanimous voice, he announced her: "Her Majesty, the Queen!" Inside the initial chamber, a hodgepodge of other servants and clerks milled about; with noticeable (at least to her) reluctance, they slowly turned toward her to pay homage. "Majesty."

"Good afternoon, gentlemen." She forced a regal smile onto her face, hoping that she did not appear as strained as she felt. She began to think of an explanation to offer as to why she was here, but what words could she possibly give that would satisfy the dual requirement of being publicly appropriate and effectively accurate? 'I am here to force my marriage back into favour.' 'I come here before you in desperation, but do carry on with your clerical tasks.' 'Would you all please kindly add an extra 'God save the Queen' to your prayers this evening?' There was no way to explain herself, and therefore there would be no explanation. She simply turned her head, then her body, in the direction in which she was gravitating. Steeling herself every step of the way, she prepared to do her utmost to protect herself and the things for which she had so long suffered and worked.

ii.

He heard her coming. Or, rather, he heard his herald announce that she was coming. "Ughhhhhh," he groaned out loud, frustrated at hearing 'Her Majesty, the Queen!' parroted in his outer chamber. He wiped a hand downward over his forehead and nose. "God in Heaven, woman, why can you not leave me be?" He was tired of her before she was in his sight. He wanted to shout, "Turn her away!" but the click-clack of high-heeled shoes sounded in the short corridor before his door. He leaned back in his chair, waiting for her. If nothing else, this highly unwanted audience could be enjoyable. For him. As he heard her draw near, he rose from his chair and folded his hands diplomatically in front of him, pasting a welcoming smile on his face. When the inner door swung open, he was ready for her. "Majesty."

To his surprise, she made no move. She gazed, unblinking, at him for a few long moments. He did not wish to engage in a staring contest, so he tried again. "My lady?"

That set her in motion. Steadily, she took one step forward, then another. Before her was the man who had brought her to this station and now wanted her out of it. When her even, calculated steps brought her close enough, she reached out with one ringed hand and did what she had been yearning to do for months: she slapped Thomas Cromwell, hard, across his right cheekbone.

The smack of flesh on flesh resounded in the otherwise quiet and empty office. He had not expected that, and they both knew it. Kindly, she gave him a moment to collect himself, while she mentally celebrated this small victory. She found that she longed to strike him again, and the depth of her venom shook her. When his green eyes, showing the world that he was startled, lighted back upon her cool blue ones, she said softly, "Dare not address me with such informality again, Master Cromwell."

His eyes danced with what he anticipated would be another triumph for him. He was ready to play her game. "My apologies… Majesty." A momentary pause, a pensive tilt of the head. "If memory serves, I saw Your Majesty in this office not more than a few hours ago. How fares Your Majesty since then?" The corners of his mouth curled upward slightly, his generous, assured smile back in place.

Anne did not falter. "Master Cromwell, I understand that the king is ill this afternoon."

A flicker of worry, then doubt, crossed his steady face. "Ill, madam?"

"That is the only conclusion that I am able to draw, Master Secretary. I was denied an audience with my husband on the grounds that he is indisposed, and since I know the whereabouts of his mistress, I can only assume that he is ill. I wonder whether you might arrange for me to pay a visit to his rooms… To bid him good tidings and send a token of my affection and well-wishes, of course." Her gaze swept up, her eyes challenging his.

This was dangerous ground. If the king were ill – which they both knew he was not – rumours would overtake the court faster than the sweating sickness in Cheapside. Henry could not afford his people, let alone his fellow rulers abroad, to think that he was again incapacitated. Cromwell would have much to answer for if the king's lady wife instigated such a whirlwind of falsehood. "My enemies seek to lessen my reputation through false reports of my ill composition, and you, Cromwell, stand by and let – no, enable – them to do it? God's blood, why did you not tell her I was simply busy?" Yet on the other hand, to deny that Henry were ill would be for Cromwell to admit that there was an ulterior motive behind Henry's refusal to see her, thereby stoking her suspicion and perhaps throwing another boulder in their path. "That nosing woman comes sniffing around your office for clues and you just hand them to her, encouraging her to nurse her suspicion and cause us even more trouble? Sweet Jesu, why did you not lie and tell her that I was ill?" There was no way out. He was silent for a moment too long.

"Master Cromwell, is my husband ill or well?"

_Neither, to be entirely honest_, he answered her silently. He breathed in, maintaining his noble smile, and with his exhalation said, "Majesty, the king is indisposed this afternoon."

Her icy eyes hardened and narrowed into sharp points. "Indisposed," she repeated softly. "Indisposed. I see. And to whom could I speak about his condition? You understand that I worry about my husband," she added. Cromwell opened his mouth, but she went on, "I cannot think of anyone who could know his circumstances better than…" her head dipped in a portrait of modesty "…well, not his own wife… but you, Master Cromwell." Her eyes rolled back up to his. "So I ask you again. What is keeping me from my husband?"

Despite himself, his heart picked up a half-beat in speed. He managed to soothe it for a moment until he noticed that Anne was trailing her fingers around his documents again, as she had hours ago – but now her fingers were very near his letter to Henry. The letter that he had written, half-true and deliberately ambiguous, to the sole effect of ruining Anne utterly in Henry's eyes. He tried to remain calm. She could not see that letter. It would make things astronomically more difficult. Despite himself, he swallowed. "I know not, Majesty."

A tiny smirk appeared on her otherwise steely face. She had discovered something useful. As though absentmindedly, her face still upturned, she began to trace her fingers across one document, then another. "I believe that you do. Master Secretary." Her fingers were, unbeknownst to her, painfully close to the seal of that letter. "Although I admit that I came here expecting your recalcitrance." Her voice sounded soft, soothing. He had always understood that Anne had a power in her charm that attracted men to her; the same spell under which Henry retrospectively believed, now, that he had fallen when he had begun to love her. At this sweet tone of hers, Cromwell felt like she was treating him to a sample of that coercion. Unfortunately for her, it would not work on him. He could detect the hardness under her lilt; her voice, like her intentions, was a sledgehammer masquerading as a down pillow.

"Unfortunately, Majesty, I have no further information to give to you concerning your husband's condition." He met her eyes unfalteringly.

The smirk deepened. "No, perhaps not," Anne conceded. "But some information on the circumstances surrounding his refusal of me…" For the first time, she looked down at his desk. "_That_ you may have."

His eyes followed hers. Dear God. She was staring at that new seal, that new letter. She had realized that it had not been there before. They both stared at the square of paper, the undeniable wax crest of Cromwell's office. A new letter. She knew it had not been there before. Unbidden, Cromwell murmured, "Majesty…"

They raised their eyes mutually to regard one another again. Anne's eyes were alive again, alive with hatred and passion, because she had won. Her smile was one of genuine delight, but she kept on a thoughtful mask. "I wonder…" Her eyes told him that she did not wonder. She knew – she had judged from his reaction, and her damned intuition – that she had him. His countenance was steady, but in his mind he could not decide whether to shove her out of his office, let her read the letter and dare her to do anything about it, or just kill her on the spot. Locked again in battle, this time the stakes were higher than ever. This was not the arena for vague threats and scruples about the property of the realm, nor a petty loyalty issue; Anne had determined that she was in real danger, and at the end of this, it seemed inconceivable that secretary and queen could both remain standing. The scales of power were unpredictable, and they balanced, for the moment, on that sheet of paper.

At once, both hands shot out for the letter, and both hands claimed it. Anne's right hand held onto a scrap of one corner, while Cromwell's larger, more powerful one grasped the majority of the parchment. They stared each other down.

"Let go," Anne said simply.

"No," Cromwell replied.

"I am the queen of England. I am the lawful wife of an anointed sovereign. I demand that you relinquish this correspondence to me at once."

"I am the king's loyal servant and his chief secretary. In that capacity, I refuse your command… Your Majesty." He offered a little bow of the head.

"Master Cromwell-"

But it was too late. As Anne had prepared her attack on Cromwell's sense of reason, she had unconsciously slackened her grip on the letter, and he wrenched it from her fingers with the dexterity of a master organist. Anne gave an incoherent yelp of frustration as she grabbed after the letter, but Cromwell held it behind his back, fending her off with his opposite hand as he moved away from his desk. The comical thought of childhood keep-away games crossed his mind; Anne was fairly tall, but certainly not a physically strong woman. She did pursue him with great determination, though, tripping angrily after him, trying to snatch at the letter as they crossed the room in just a few steps. Not having realized where they were going, Anne was helpless as Cromwell thrust the letter into the roaring flames of his fireplace. Another indecipherable, almost animalistic, growl escaped her as she watched the letter crinkle into solid ash. Cromwell turned back to her, his face showing an odd mixture of victorious grin and angry challenge.

"You… you…" she sputtered, one hand coming to the side of her face as she looked sorrowfully at the lost letter. She looked back at his taunting face and found that where words failed her, instincts would suffice. Without pausing for thought, her breath coming in deep gasps, Anne shoved Cromwell toward the open fireplace every ounce of hatred and desperation that had been coursing through her veins for the past months. She had no thought in her mind other than the obvious, that she wanted to be rid of him.

Unfortunately for Her Majesty, Master Secretary was in flesh stronger than he appeared. Shuffling backward a step or two was to be Anne's best result, and Cromwell was steady again on his feet. She had not even gotten him close enough to singe his black robes. "Majesty," Cromwell said, a hint of shock in his voice, "you mean to assassinate me?"

Anne felt out of her mind with a stronger loathing than she had ever imagined possible. Her cheeks flushed from standing near the fire, or maybe from the embarrassment of trying and failing to push her husband's secretary into a fire, Anne managed to rasp out her thoughts. "Perhaps not now, Master Cromwell. But I promise, and I vow, with Jesus Christ as my sworn judge, that before they lay me in my grave I will see you on the scaffold." Smiling a little at the thought, she continued, "On second thought, perhaps I will not see you. Perhaps Henry and I will spend that morning on the river, with the children. With our son. You see, Master Cromwell, my husband is partial to those who love him. He knows who loves him. He knows that I love him. And you, Cromwell, you love only yourself. Eventually, my wise husband will realize this, and down you will go like the Judas you are, to hell." Her tirade having restored confidence to her, Anne took a step back, placing her hands on her hips. She could feel tiny pearls of sweat beginning to form on her back, her abdomen, and her shoulders. She yearned for fresh air; this office was stifling. _How does he ever get any work done in here?_ she wondered absently.

Cromwell, for his part, barely refrained from laughing out loud at the ridiculous picture. Henry, bedding Anne again, getting a son off her, and ridding himself of Cromwell. Was this woman mad? Had she been living in a cave for the past three months? And yet, he could not untangle the knot into which his stomach had settled itself. He wanted her out of his office at once. His nerves, his impenetrable nerves, were inexplicably aflutter. _No one likes to hear their execution foretold, no matter how… ridiculous_, he reasoned with himself. _Pity I cannot be as direct with her._ Nonetheless, he rejoined as he walked back toward his desk, to settle back to his papers. And write a new letter to the king upon her departure, which he would carry himself. "That was profound, Your Majesty. Perhaps you and Thomas Wyatt would do well to collaborate. Or… nay, heaven direct me…" he paused at the corner of his desk, frowning, and scratched his chin in mock remembrance. He turned back to the seething queen. "Perhaps you already have?"

A woman had never been so angry in the history of the world, he decided immediately thereafter. Anne could not even form a thought, so distraught was she. What to do – defend her honour, insult her insulter, or dignify neither the man nor the idea with an answer? He expected her to fly at him again, and for a moment imagined rendering her unconscious with a sudden blow to the skull, but she did not. She swallowed her rage as best she could. "Master Cromwell, God is watching. And heaven knows that you are consigned to the flames in the deepest, windiest part of hell after your time on earth comes to blessed end, but in the meantime, do as your reformist scholars dictate and respect your anointed queen."

Now it was his turn to smirk. "Majesty, with all due respect, your husband is my legal sovereign and the Supreme Head of the Church of England. It is to him that I must naturally pay my utmost loyalty, although Your Majesty cannot in good faith state that I have ever acted in direct contrast to my aforesworn loyalties to Your Majesty. In this matter, as in any other such confidential matter of His Majesty, I am not permitted to discuss affairs with anyone other than the king or his appointed proxy – barring, of course, express permission from your _husband_."

"My _husband_ will see you hanged for your blatant disrespect of me," Anne returned, somehow echoing Cromwell's precise fears from earlier that day. "My husband," she repeated, a shadow of the pain that Henry had caused her actually visible on her face, "loves me. His loyalty to me will mend and strengthen, and then where will you be? Rest assured. He has loved me above a decade. He will come to love me again."

Before he could stop himself, "Queen Kath- forgive me; the Princess Dowager – could not have phrased it better herself."

Anne's eyes burned with rage once more. She was so changeable. Like a baited bear. She was fun. "You, Master Secretary, are fit to be taught a lesson in knowing your place. In… _manners_."

He cocked his head so that he was slightly more on her level and, taking a step toward her, softly replied, "And plan you, Majesty, to give that to me? Queenly dignity aside, you are behaving like a madwoman."

Not to be bested, Anne advanced a step also. "Cease your callous remarks. How dare you speak to me like that. You are nothing but a piece of filth from a Putney mudhole." She must have expected that this would hurt, but Cromwell had heard much worse, and from people of much higher lineage.

He took a last, tiny, step toward her. His voice barely above a whisper, he looked into her desperate face and spoke the words that would have spilled her tears a few hours before:

"And you, _my lady_, are nothing but an unwanted wife."

There was a stretch of perhaps a dozen seconds after he spoke in which neither could say a word. The air in the chamber was so still that Anne was distracted by the shouting of workers from the courtyard below, and Cromwell could hear the banter of his clerks down the hall as he argued with the queen. Their eyes avoided each other; Cromwell wanted her to cry but dared not hope for such a victory. If he brought her to tears, she would surely leave him alone. He settled his eyes on her neck and the bit of collarbone that he could see at the opening of her gown, thinking that if she shuddered prior to shedding a tear, he would best see it there. Just as Cromwell's heartbeat picked up, Anne's arms flew up from her sides, and before he even had time to blink, let alone react, she had him by the throat with both hands. Pushing her body closer to his for leverage, she squeezed her hands tightly around his neck, pushing on his windpipe with the heels of both hands.

"I won't wait for the hangman, or the axeman, or the man who will cut off your parts," she said in a low voice, directly at his face. "I will see you dead on this floor at my feet. Why prolong the inevitable?"

He had at first sensed that she was not strong enough to kill him, but her technique was actually fairly effective. Of course, his hands were free, so unless he submitted to being strangled, there was no danger. Was she betting on that? He could not believe how fiercely violent she so easily became. Was she always like this? Was she like this with the king? He could just imagine a physical row between the two of them. He almost wanted to chuckle, but the fact was that she was rapidly cutting off his airflow. He felt his head get lighter, but he could not in good faith shove or strike his queen. That Henry would not allow, and they both knew it. Drawing in a long, ragged breath, Cromwell said in as gentlemanly a voice as possible, "Madam, I really must protest."

Probably wishing that she could throttle him to death, Anne whispered, "I am the king's wife, and yet you respect me not at all. Who are you to defy me?"

Closing his eyes to hide their rolling in frustration, Cromwell suddenly seized the queen's wrists in an iron grip and wrenched them from his neck, pinning them behind her back. He wondered when she would understand. Heaving a great, exhausted sigh, Cromwell looked around the room. Anywhere but at her face, which was closer to him than it had ever been, even this morning; he could smell her perfume again, he noticed. "Highness." Eyes to the left, he addressed the shocked but incapacitated woman in the tone that one would use to instruct a distracted child. "I will again say to you that I am the king's secretary and his servant. I do what he desires; no more, no less. And at the moment, I have no need of obedience toward or patronage from you. I serve your husband and his needs, not you and yours."

Her eyes burned blue when he met them again, and he could tell that she wanted to state that she and the king were one, a single entity, a united team – but in reasonability, she could not. Instead, she reverted – _as women are wont to do_, Cromwell thought – to her emotions. Beginning to struggle against him, her neck craned upward as she tipped her head back to look him in the face, Anne bit her lip. "I hate you, I hate you-" she managed, rather feebly. Her heel came down with painful accuracy on top of his slippered foot, but all that this gleaned was a brief grimace from him. Summoning up all of her energy, Anne shouted, "Release me!"

"Not until Your Majesty catches hold of yourself," he said in a soothing tone which he knew would irritate her.

One last heaving time, Anne wrenched her shoulder forward, trying to twist out of Cromwell's nonchalant, strong grip. He nearly lost hold of her wrist, and she quickly twisted the other way, trying to seize on his disadvantage. Close as they had been, this maneuver brought them closer, and with the queen's head tilted back and the secretary's downward, only a breath of space separated them. Then, suddenly, nothing did. Lips met, fleeting as a butterfly wing's graze against one's bare arm. Eyes closed.

Stillness.

**A/N: **Welllllll! I do hope this is tantalizing and enjoyable for you all!

**UP NEXT: **

He felt himself leaning toward the woman in front of him, deliberately avoiding referring to her as 'queen' in his thoughts, and telling himself that it was so that he could speak in her ear. As though he would need to stand this intimately close to a person in order to threaten them. But his mind formed the image of speaking in her ear, his cheek a heartbeat from her smoothed hair, his breath tickling her neck. What was he telling her, in this fantasy? A joke, he realized. He longed to make her laugh. _Laugh? _God help him, he wanted to see her smile, know that he had caused it, watch her clap one hand over her mouth to fail in stifling a giggle.

Mentally, he shook himself. This woman hated him, and he could not say that he thought affectionately of her. He was working to secure her very downfall, and she had in the past quarter hour twice struck him, attempted to shove him into an open fire, and choked him until he lost his breath. And yet he wanted to bend his head to her ear and murmur, "Two cardinals, a whore, and a baited bear are on a barge in the Thames," deliver the punchline, and smile as he watched her laugh? Christ in heaven.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Part II of the encounter I posted last Friday… I hope that everyone enjoys it! I'm sorry it took me so long, I'm dastardly sick + classes + work = irresponsible. Boo.

MrsPhantomSylvia, I love your reviews and heartily look forward to them with each new chapter! Don't sell yourself short!

Pandora, I am very glad to have surprised you. That was my goal – I tried diligently to keep any warning signs out ahead of time. (As you will see, Cromwell and Anne have much the same reaction!) Things will get even more interesting from here, I promise!

Nat, I am so glad you like reading it – I like writing it! ;)

And boldlikeblack, my new reviewer! Welcome! I'm so glad you are enjoying the story. I appreciate your compliments so much as well, and I anticipate that you will like what is to come – at least I hope so!

When last we left them, queen and secretary had had what we shall call an accidental breach of physical space…

19 April 1536 – Late Afternoon

After a swollen moment, the queen took a long step away from Cromwell, whose shock at the contact had resulted in an all-but-nonexistent grasp of her wrists. Anne could see the bewilderment in his eyes; it was undeniable. He looked as though someone had just offered him stewed rat for supper. It was visible on her face as well, she supposed. In a moment, it turned to anger – familiar emotion – within her. Cromwell made no move to excuse himself, as she thought he might; although the silence had not lasted more than few seconds, this was enough to anger the confused queen further. Terrified by the pounding of her own heart and the inquisitive, albeit horrified, look of Cromwell's eyes, Anne acted to erase any lingering positive sentiment that either party may have harboured concerning the incident. Repeating an earlier action, Anne raised her hand and quickly dealt the secretary a blow across the face, this time with the back of it. Cromwell did not so much as flinch at this second slap. The queen's wedding ring, a large emerald set in ornately carved polished gold prongs, sliced a shallow gash in the skin of his cheekbone. A thin red line of blood materialized on his still stunned, still unreadable face. The blood did not seep out of the cut and trickle down his cheek; it stayed, content, against the line of his cheekbone. She expected that he would reach up to feel the cut, but his hands remained where he had left them, awkwardly hanging at his sides, when she wrenched herself away from him. He stared at her. She stared at him.

His eyes were beautiful, although she hated them, hated him, hated to admit that anything about his person could be attractive. They were a most appealing shade of green. And quite talented at dissembling, flicking this way and that, providing false warmth to his conversational partner just before he stabbed them in the back or tripped up their feet. His hair was dark, curly, like her own… she would never have shared her preferences, but she had always preferred fair-haired men. Half the reason that she had allowed Thomas Wyatt to profess such ridiculous vows to her all those summers ago was that she liked twisting his honeycombed locks around her fingers as he sat before a desk, on a riverbank, in an armchair, in front of her.

Her long face was, after all, surprisingly pleasing, he had decided, in spite of his early impressions of her. He supposed that she had the sort of beauty to which one becomes accustomed, not like the blatantly sexual appeal of the women of the east, or even the sun-streaked prettiness of blonde English beauties like Mistress Luke or – _dare I think it?_ – Mistress Seymour. She was ethereally lovely, although too delicate for his tastes. She had been more beautiful in years past, before her cares got the best of her radiant vivacity.

Cromwell was strong, surprisingly so. He certainly did not look it. She knew, of course, that the average man was fairly strong. Her husband, of course, was blessed with remarkable strength, which he was not afraid to show off or exhibit to anyone. Master Cromwell kept his hidden under those robes, masquerading as a man sinister in thought and intent only, bringing out his physical power solely for the purpose of the occasional intimidation. Of her, she realized. Intimidation of her. As though she was afraid of him, which she certainly was not. Yet her heart would not calm itself.

A smile would help, he had thought in the past. Not that he had thought of her attractiveness in the past, beyond any reasonable extent. But in his opinion, in his private, secret opinion, her most beautiful appearance at court had been a recent one: it was when she had been dressed all in yellow, celebrating Katherine's death. With child then, of course. A bit rounder. He had known, been certain, that she was with child then, although she had not gone running about announcing it to people as with Elizabeth. Her interesting new Venetian headdress, perfectly matched to that marigold gown, those bright eyes, smiling mouth. Red lips. The same that had just touched him. His stomach was knotted in anxiety, and in something else. He could not be sure what.

Unaware of herself, Anne stepped toward Cromwell, just one step. Left foot came to meet right. She could barely form a thought; it was natural that she should step forward, or so her mind tried to reason. Cromwell stepped forward as well, a slightly larger step, due to his longer legs, or maybe something else. They regarded each other warily, each burning with annoyance, competition, exhaustion at one another, neither sure whether to bite or shout. Their bodies strained just a little inward, slowly closing the gap between them, although their feet did not move. Inside her shoes, Anne's bare feet rolled upward, pushing her further toward Cromwell.

Her breathing was quick; Cromwell noticed her collarbone, out of the periphery of his vision, rising and falling rapidly. His own mind was a jumbled mass of nonsense, his eyes flitting nervously – yes, nervously, _for God's sake, what is the matter with me_ – between her soft, uneasy eyes and her lips. He felt more anxiety and genuine confusion than he had in above a decade; the strength of the emotion literally made him feel ill. Yet he felt himself leaning toward the woman in front of him, deliberately avoiding referring to her as 'queen' in his thoughts, and telling himself that it was so that he could speak in her ear. As though he would need to stand this intimately close to a person in order to threaten them. By God, he had done it in half a dozen tongues, shouting and writing from his desk, this day already. But his mind formed the image of speaking in her ear, his cheek a heartbeat from her smoothed hair, his breath tickling her neck. What was he telling her, in this fantasy? A joke, he realized. He longed to make her laugh. _Laugh? _God help him, he wanted to see her smile, know that he had caused it, watch her clap one hand over her mouth to fail in stifling a giggle. He wanted to see the light in her eyes, that glow which made her beautiful in addition to her bravery and intelligence. Mentally, he shook himself. This woman hated him, and he could not say that he thought affectionately of her. He was working to secure her very downfall, and she had in the past quarter hour twice struck him, attempted to shove him into an open fire, and choked him until he lost his breath. And yet he wanted to bend his head to her ear and murmur, "Two cardinals, a whore, and a baited bear are on a barge in the Thames," deliver the punchline, and smile as he watched her laugh? Christ in heaven.

Anne's eyes darted between Cromwell's own and the little scuffmark on his cheek, which she was not sorry to have caused. Was she? No. Certainly not. She was, however, in a state of utter confusion; all she understood was that the two of them were standing ungodly close, staring at one another but not always making eye contact. She wondered whether he was going to strike her back, and decided that he would not dare. Regardless of Henry's feelings for her, he would never tolerate anyone striking his wife. Quickly, inexplicably, she put her husband from her thoughts for the first time this day. Each deep breath brought new musings on Cromwell, and what he was going to say, how he was going to try to excuse this liberty that had just occurred between them. She was sure he was spinning some exquisite excuse for their accident, but he was leaning close to her even as she found herself easing toward him.

Finally, they were in too close a proximity to deny what was about to occur. Anne tipped her head back just a bit, her eyes sliding closed. The last image, burned into her memory forever, before she closed her eyes was that of Cromwell's eyelashes closing over his own green eyes, enormously large due to their physical closeness. She could hardly believe what was occurring. She told herself that it was… that it was… nothing. She could find no excuse for it, and as their lips touched again, she did not want to.

At the feeling of those lips on his for the second time, Cromwell asked himself what in God's name he was doing. Not only would Henry see him racked to death for thinking such a thing, even of a cast-off wife, this was Cromwell's newfound enemy who was stretching up to meet him. Their lips barely touched, and his mind went blank after this first moment of frenzied self-admonishment. A gentle push – from whom it was impossible to say – brought their mouths into full contact with one another, and for a long moment neither moved, breathed, thought, or even existed. The only real, palpable, concept was the touching of their lips. Uncertainly, one intellectual hand fumbled for the other, tentatively crossing the air between the swell of their garments into enemy territory and allowing fingertips to graze. At once, both pulled back from this second kiss and took a breath.

There was no going back now. In that short spell, colour had flushed onto the cheeks of both, and after a moment passed, eyes raised guiltily under eyelashes, queen and secretary crushed together, this kiss harder, deeper, more. Sweetness, predictably, dared not show its face between this man and woman, who had been each plotting the death of the other, in fantasy if not in fact. Bringing his hands to her neck, wishing he could choke her like she had done him, Cromwell forced Anne closer to him, sliding his fingers inside her lace collar to meet and intertwine at the nape of her neck. Her hands flew, almost angrily, to his gold chain of office, which she gripped and twisted in her hands, pulling downward on it. Instead of being forced to her level, Cromwell grasped her thin upper arms, right below her puffed shoulders, and squeezed her as he lifted her up toward him an imperceptible amount. She strained up toward him more, a gasp at being forced to straighten up breaking their kiss, and he sighed, sounding frustrated and satisfied at once, before reclaiming her mouth.

Before long it was not enough. The heat of the fire had died down, Cromwell noted in one corner of his mind as he kissed his queen's lips, her slender frame locked, willfully, between his hands. He had not kissed a woman since his wife, had never held a woman quite like this, he realized. He wondered to himself whether he was doing this to prove a point – although what that point could possibly be, he had no idea – or because he had a broader plan, one which he himself had not even considered. The queen's guard was down, amazingly; but so was his. Trying to reason had failed him again, and instead, he let his instincts take over, for once acting upon what he wanted in the moment in which he found he wanted it. He made a move, thinking to steer Anne in a certain direction, and almost cried out in surprise when she moved at the same time that he did. Had she anticipated his step? Intuitively sensed where he was heading? Or was she acting independently of him? Their movements in sync, Cromwell and Anne moved, admittedly trippingly, across the floor of his office toward his large desk. Cromwell gripped her arms harder, his sense of dominance taking over, nearly lifting her off her feet entirely. Anne, predictably defiant, shuffled her feet against the floor, those damned heels clattering against the stone. She did not mean to cooperate, although she certainly _was_ cooperating.

For the first time, Cromwell touched his tongue to her lower lip, unobtrusively, to test her reaction. Anne made a tiny, breathy sound, which was incredibly sweet-sounding in Cromwell's ears. He relished the sound only for a moment, though, before she stomped the heel of her shoe again on his toe. Presumably as much to challenge him as to scold him, for she did not speak, Anne raised her shoe from his throbbing foot one moment, and in the next kissed him fiercely, flicking his tongue with hers. His foot throbbing, he wanted to bite her tongue. She was going to break his foot if she kept that up. That would not do. As Anne brought her foot back to the floor in anticipation of their next mutual step, Cromwell's foot darted out to tip her shoe sideways, pinning the heel flat against the floor under the ball of his foot. Half-lifting, half-pushing, Cromwell moved Anne backwards, taking her foot out of the shoe. She stumbled backward, uneven now with one heel remaining, but his grip on her arms steadied her, propelled her blindly, further back. Through her skirts Anne could feel that they had reached Cromwell's desk, but he did not cease his physical control of her, pressing her to him and locking his arms vertically against her torso. A little frustrated sound escaped her mouth, only to get lost in his. In response, he kissed her deeper, eliciting a more pleased noise from her throat. Still, distractedly, Anne tried to twist free. She had an extreme dislike for his physical imprisonment of her but could not bring herself to remove her mouth from his. Her heart beating wildly, she returned his kisses deeply, hungrily, refusing to let her mind entertain any coherent thought beyond the physical sensations of their contact.

_Stop squirming, God damn you_, Cromwell thought, pressing his arms closer against Anne's sides. She did not obey, as he might have predicted. Firmly backed against the desk, Anne continued to push her body against his, her breathing becoming all the while more laboured. Her chest, not much raised to begin with, strained against her tight bodice, and her slender shoulders, damask-covered, rose and fell quickly. She was not sure whether she was imagining it or not, but she swore she could feel that the man whose body was pressed against hers was becoming aroused. She was no stranger to such experiences, but rather than take simple pleasure in it, Anne found herself at once annoyed that Cromwell should presume to have that sort of reaction to her and also desperate to elicit a stronger reaction from him still – whether to prove it to herself or to him, or for another, more deeply buried, and entirely more dangerous reason, she could not be sure. Anne's hands discreetly released his chain of office, onto which she had been clutching this entire time, and found their way to his neck. She traced her fingers around his collar and tentatively delved into his dark hair, her palms curved around the base of his neck. Pulling his head down closer to her, Anne kissed him more deeply than before, the tip of her tongue finding his and then pressing her body more tightly to his, inhaling sharply as he squeezed her ribs. His hands had somehow found their way closer to her chest, and his thumbs were tentatively grazing the sides of the small swells above her concaved waist. In a moment of senseless calculation, Anne brought her elbows down to nudge at his wrists, encouraging his fingers inward, while beginning a new, slow kiss.

As she might have predicted, his reaction was intense. At her nudging and softer kiss, a rasping groan, like a bridegroom might make, escaped Cromwell's throat. One hand dared to drift to the middle of her gown, where her neckline met in a harsh slit, and two fingers delved underneath. He could not believe his own senses – the way that he was touching the queen was more than criminal, more than treasonable, even. It was absolutely damnable. And he did not even like this woman. But, God, he could not stop. And he did not want to, he realized. _By God, I do not want to…_ Half of him begged her mentally to make him stop, to call him more names and kick him again, even; the other half wanted to bring forth more of those breathy noises from her lips. And all of him knew somehow that she would not stop him. Inexplicably, this had lain beneath the surface in both of them for the past minutes, hours… days? Years? Cromwell could honestly say that he had never fantasized about this, never thought about this, never lived this in his mind. Not just because to do so would be treasonous, but because it simply had not occurred to him. Yes, Anne was lovely; yes, she excelled at dancing, spoke glorious French, and had the voice of a nightingale; yes, she dressed beautifully and had a very pleasing way of turning her eye on a man; but even at their most cooperative and closest, Cromwell had thought Anne an ally, a partner, a sympathizer. Never a potential… lover. Not even mentally. Naturally, he had wondered whether she had made love to Thomas Wyatt – but in the interest of the king. Of course he had also wondered whether the royal couple had much fun in bed after so much tension in public – but he had never imagined himself in Henry's place. And yes, if he were to be completely honest with himself, there were moments where Cromwell had found Anne delectable, ravishing – but he had never imagined himself, tasting her, ravishing her. He had smelled her perfume, even, and not thought of what lay between her legs. This was inexplicable, this… this moment. This incident. Could one call it an incident when it had not yet finished? In Cromwell's mind, it was already an incident, for he could foresee, he knew, where it would end. And suddenly, he realized that he had known, those moments when he had her arms pinned behind her back, when she twisted against him, a shoulder or an arm grazing his velvet, he had known in his mind that he had felt this way. He had spent all that time looking at her lips. Dear God, this had existed in him. And in her. It surely had existed in her, although she herself had certainly not known of it either.

In response to the almost tender, almost loverly, moment that had just passed between them, Cromwell, frustrated by his own frenzied and yet still sequence of thought, allowed his body to do what it wished. Lifting Anne straight off her feet, he placed her backward, with somewhat of a jolt, onto his desk and advanced on her, having the indirect effect of causing her to part her knees slightly. Annoyed at being handled roughly – as much out of her own turbulent stream of deliberations on the folly in which she was heartily participating, Anne bit down on Cromwell's lip. Admittedly, it was the gentlest act of violence which she had bestowed upon him yet that day, for it was an almost playful show of annoyance, and soothed at once by the sensation of those graceful white hands, roaming again. Her blue eyes flicked upward at Cromwell's face to find that his green ones were regarding her, warily, intensely, eagerly. A small, modest turn of expression – a rolling inward of the lips which betrayed her uncertainty, then a flash of a smile – were all that prefaced Anne's lips on his neck, her hands trailing down the front of Cromwell's robes, skipping over his gold chain, and finding their way, fumblingly, between the front folds of his outer jacket. His fine linen shirt – her deft fingers knew how expensive the fabric was – quivered with the reflection of his increasingly shuddering breaths, and Anne's hands turned over, pressing their backs, from fingernail to knuckle, against his thin stomach. For sure, Cromwell had never indulged himself to any point of excess. Just as she. Her hands, quite unaware of themselves, turned over again, catching the fabric on her wedding ring and dragging it upward. Once it had occurred to her, the thought of touching his skin was impossible to ignore.

Already on the point of gasping from her soft kisses against his throat, the sensation of those lovely fingers tugging at his undershirt was too much to bear. One finger found itself back inside the front of her gown, while the other hand tipped her chin backward so he could kiss her lips again. He had missed her lips, he thought, as they reconnected with his. Their mouths knew each other. Already. The sweet sensation of her softer, more intimate kisses calmed him, surprisingly, as he had been dreaming of striking her minutes before. Suddenly, her heels pressed at the backs of his legs, her own legs spreading a little further in an effort to draw him nearer. Her hands had found their way past his undershirt, and her fingertips pressed themselves, ten isolated points, against his abdomen. Cromwell inhaled sharply against her mouth, feeling Anne shudder with the effort of collecting herself, and then she ran her fingernails gently down his skin. Finally, Cromwell uttered a half-articulate syllable: "Ah," halfway between a gasp and a shudder. He pulled his mouth away from hers and laid his forehead against her, tipping her head backward and begging her to look him in the eyes. She obliged readily, her fingertips resting above his hose, certain that they would not venture further but near to shaking with her arousal. She wanted him closer. He wanted that damned dress off her shoulders. Damask or not, he would happily have taken dagger to it. He was imagining… God, he was imagining a lot of things. How her hair would look completely unbound, not so much as a pin restraining it, unadorned with pearls or stones, brushed out, before bed. Whether her legs were as white and thin as the rest of her. What color garter ribbons she wore. How much of her body smelled like that perfume.

His eyes were more beautiful the more she looked at them. She had hated to admit it to herself before, but now, somehow, she admired them openly. They were large, deep, green, with many layers and thick eyelashes. She had never known a man with such eyes, although her husband did have the most enticing eyes that she had ever seen. So piercing, so ravishing, so powerful, and yet just eyes. Narrow and determined to get what he desired. Cromwell had the eyes of a man who had clawed for every morsel that he had ever gotten, a man who had seen destitution, lived, loved, lost, survived. She had heard that he had seen quite a bit of fighting in his young days, when she would have been a very young girl and he a very young man, when they were both nobodies. She wondered whether he had scars, whether anyone had ever sliced into his flesh with a dagger, taken a hot poker to his back, bound him, whipped him. She wanted to flatten her hands against his back and find his scars, for on the instant she became sure that he had them. She wondered what he felt, right this moment – could a person feel fear after engaging in battle? _What do I even feel?_ she asked herself briefly, before shoving that dangerous thought out of her mind. It was dangerous not only in thought, but in fact, for she could be certain that Cromwell's arousal had been growing this entire time, and for her part, she could not describe herself as anything else. Anything but aroused. She was surely not sensible, not reasonable, not angry – no longer angry? – but surging, teeming, with something. Desire. She was damned, she was wretched, but she was aroused. She could feel it between her legs. Her legs which were, quivering, wrapped around his own now as their mouths found each other again. Drawing him closer to her arousal, although that had not been her intent. Or had it? She had never, in all her life, in any corner of her mind, imagined herself attracted to this man, and yet here they were, intertwined, mouths and hands seeking. Had she ever even thought of this before? The answer was honestly, no. _No._ She loved her husband, had always loved him. Her own stomach began quivering as Cromwell's abdominal muscles quaked under her gentle touch, and she wondered idly what his past lovemaking experiences had been like. He had had three children. Two were dead now. That she certainly understood. She had met his wife once… a pretty thing, Elizabeth. He had loved her. She was dead now too. Her husband was not… her _husband_ was _not_. The thought of Henry, the man she loved, came to her mind. God, he would kill her. He would have her drowned in the Thames. Then she imagined him with Jane Seymour's arms around his neck and wondered, would he? Would he be hurt? Probably not… just enraged. He had ceased to love her. But, this act, this folly, these sensations, were _adultery_. _Treason._ As the concept came crushingly into her mind, Anne pulled back from Cromwell, her body inwardly screaming as she put even a little distance between them. She was aroused, mind, body, spirit; painfully aroused. Her enflamed body would not cooperate with her mortified senses. Nonetheless, she managed to gasp out, "What are we doing?"

Alarm was in every line of Cromwell's face as well. "I… I know not," he admitted. A long moment passed. _For the love of God, woman, slap me_, he pleaded with his eyes. _Slap me now or we are damned_. His eyes tried to stray to her mouth, her shoulders, her neck, but with great self-control Cromwell managed to hold her gaze. His breath was ragged. So was hers, but in a more graceful sense.

"Nor I." Her eyes were blank, uncomprehending, thinking. Unconsciously, her legs tightened around his, mussing his robes of office. Then, a spark came into her face. Her lips curved upward, and their faces were so close that he could have kissed her in half a second, but he waited. Then, the true Anne reappeared fully: "I could see you hanged for this."

At the word _hanged_, Anne tilted her head to the side slightly, exposing the graceful ivory curve of her neck. Cromwell arched one eyebrow ironically, then glanced down at where her hands had taken up residence against his bare torso. His gaze traveled to her skirt, which was wrapped in a comical fashion around his own legs. Almost smirking at her, Cromwell lowered his head to her neck and gave a short half-chuckle, a harsh exhalation really, when she tipped her head to give his mouth free reign, a little sigh escaping her mouth. He straightened, a real smile engulfing his face. She had never seen him smile like that. It was disconcerting. He pretended to think a moment. "Or… I you, Majesty?"

Her temper flared at his presumption, and one hand removed itself from the warmth of his body to strike at his chest, feebly. He desperately wanted her stop him, because he was painfully aware that in his blank-mindedness he would continue to listen to his body and not his mind. God, that he was a man. Another moment and he could not hold off any longer, he could not fight his desire for her, this ball of fire within him which had erupted in just these past minutes. Suddenly all Cromwell could think was how beautiful she was despite that horrid outfit, how brave, how intelligent, how – damningly – stubborn and willful and dramatic. He pushed all thoughts from his mind and, meeting Anne's expectant gaze, wrapped one hand around the back of her neck, pulled her head toward him for a hard, deep kiss. She actually shuddered against him, shifting on the desk, flexing her body toward him, a small "mmm" noise rewarding him for his forbidden passion for her. He had not been with a woman since Elizabeth. He had never thought to again, unless by some fortune he had stumbled upon another marriageable lady. There had been no time for that in the years since Wolsey's death, nor had Cromwell really found the inclination. He had never thought of what lay beneath the satins of the court ladies, for the most part, and had certainly never imagined… _this._ And yet his member stood fully aroused, though neither he nor Anne had lost any clothing. Just the presence of this woman, this undeniably remarkable woman, was enough to enact the course of action that could destroy him. Both of them. But in that moment, his mind refused to let itself fully form the thought, the implication, the full gravity of what they were doing. It struggled to find the physical strength to brace his hands against Anne's shoulders and push her away, disconnect their lips, lose the contact of the other's touch, and put the trembling desire to find out what was between her legs aside. It could not. And in the next moment, it did not matter, for Cromwell's fist bunched in Anne's hair as he felt her tug at the waistband of his hose.

A deep gasp escaped him, and without hesitation he broke off from the kiss to find her hands and assist them. Anne's fingers trembled as she watched him loosen the laces, skimming across his lower stomach again. The sensations, the desire, the fire of desperate, confusing passion between them was mounting now, the tension between their weak wills and their flushed, panting bodies building to a crushing crescendo. There was no going back. As soon as Anne realized this, as soon as she accepted it, she also realized that she needed to feel him touch her, right this moment. Staying his hands, she caught a handful of her skirt in her fist and began tugging at the layers of fabric there. She could feel that her hood was askew, which would under normal circumstances have forced her to stop and adjust it, but now it was merely noted as she quivered with anticipation of Cromwell's hands on her.

He did not make her wait. Having stopped just shy of letting her see what was beneath his hose, Cromwell helped lift the layers of damask, satin, and the linen underskirts, bunching them up as he went. He finally allowed himself to look at her legs, and glanced up at her in surprise. She was not wearing stockings. Her legs were bare, had been bare all this time. There were no garter ribbons for him to wonder about or investigate at all. The sight of those white legs, smooth and bare as marble, and as delicate as he had imagined, almost ruined him. Taking a deep breath to recollect himself, Cromwell pushed the skirts up past her calves, past her knees, somehow propping the fluffy fabric on Anne's lap. It was haphazard, but he could not resist laying aside the skirts in favour of touching her thighs. Anne jumped as his hands grazed her skin in this private place, and he wondered whether his touch was cold. Putting his hands on her inner legs just above her knees, Cromwell slid her legs apart on the desk in front of him. Anne did not protest or resist; instead, her head tipped back a little, her eyes sliding closed. She was inviting him, he knew. His hands shook with the awareness and his arousal. He wanted to take her immediately; he was pulsating with desire all over his body. Biting his lip against his forceful longing, Cromwell forced himself back to steadiness and ran one hand over Anne's knee, which, he noted, he could cup in one palm with much room to spare. Her thighs were slim and long, and he shuddered himself as he ran his middle finger up one of them, glancing up to take in her reaction. She bit her lip as well, causing his member to twitch as his finger continued up her thigh. Twisting down the inner flesh, a quick circle drawn by his finger caused an actual whimper from the woman before him. That desperate, strangled little feminine noise nearly drove him mad, and he stopped to take another breath. Her head tilted to one side now, as though giving herself reluctantly to her desires, Anne inched one leg further apart from another and waited, holding her breath.

Cromwell again found himself struggling to contain his desire. He would die if he did not have her soon, he knew. Yet he could not give up this moment, this opportunity with which she had quite literally presented him. Holding his breath too, Cromwell traced his finger up the last tiny stretch of her inner thigh, under the uncontainable folds of her dress, and found the soft warmth that awaited him there. When his fingertip connected with her flesh, Anne's hips shook a bit, and she hissed on her inhalation. He ran his finger down between the petals of her sex, almost collapsing with frenzied want when he felt the slickness of her arousal – and no shortness thereof – come off on his own skin. He pushed the curiosity of whether she was always this responsive from his mind and, carefully as he could, nudged the tip of his middle finger into her. Her hips jolted this time, and a loud clang caused them both to jump. Her other shoe had crashed to the floor, the first having been removed by him some minutes before.

She no longer wanted to stop him, which was fortunate because she could not. She knew, however, that he would stop this in a moment in favour of the grand culmination. No man lasted long in these little diversions, she was sure. Pleasing though they were, Anne had never allowed herself to get too attached to them. The tiny circles drawn by the first inch of Cromwell's finger inside her were threatening to make her moan out loud, which she was determined not to do. She could not stop her hips' little movements as he pleasured her, even though she knew he was withholding from her as all men did. Even Henry had used his entire finger on her in the past, and his desire to have her had been more than Cromwell's ever had been. As soon as she thought it, though, she had to glance at his face to see if it were true, only to decide that it might not be. The ever-calm Master Secretary looked near to losing his mind, as close as she was, in fact. _God in heaven, where has this come from?_

All thoughts escaped her when Anne suddenly felt the length of his finger pushed into her, and she lost all power to hold her head up. Dropping it the rest of the way back, Anne spread her legs as wide as she could and arched her body toward Cromwell, silently begging him for more. He bent his finger a little inside her, causing her inner muscles to clench and relax, and when he stilled his movements she realized that her privy parts were throbbing in anticipation. As were his, she knew, somehow. At the thought of this she felt near to weeping. But then another finger, or maybe the thumb, of Cromwell's hand found another point on her skin, farther up, a little bud. He pressed gently and began massaging it, to and fro. His other finger kept up a slow, gentle stroke.

About to wrinkle her nose or ask him what he thought he was doing, Anne was abruptly seized with an explosion of her intimate muscles. The little bump that Cromwell was stroking came alive and triggered an unexplainable sensation throughout her body. This wave of pleasure brought forth the moan that she had sworn would not escape, although it was barely a moan because Anne had no power over her body other than to make it breathe. Her head fell against her shoulder, the deep sigh filling the space between them. Cromwell's eyes were on her face, his body counting down the moments until he could wait no longer for her. The sensation heightened as he discerned which strokes she liked best; his middle finger, and the backs of the others, were coated with her arousal. When he slid his finger downward over that little spot, Anne jumped back from his touch, slapping his hand away. She regarded him warily, unmistakable fear and even effrontery in her face. She had never felt that before. No man had ever done that to her, nothing even close. That was well enough for him; Cromwell then grasped her hips and pulled her down the desk toward him. The hose came down this time, lacings having been loosened and his member begging to be free to please her as his fingers had. Anne's excitement hurtled toward its peak. She wanted to touch him. She needed to touch him.

Reaching out timidly, Anne gathered his robe in her hands and pushed it aside, holding it out of the way with one wrist while her other hand found its way to his member. She swallowed and exhaled shakily, wrapping her fingers around its base. She could feel the tension rolling off Cromwell's body in hot waves, waiting for her to act. She squeezed his hardness a little, and felt his knees weaken. She felt weak as well, but for a different reason. He was big. He was bigger than Henry. She was no virgin, but she was no whore either. She had not thought of this, had never considered this – although, to be frank, she had not had much time for mulling this afternoon, much less in the past quarter hour. Nonetheless, the pit of her stomach tightened as she slowly slid her hand over the skin toward the tip of his member. Another hoarse groan escaped his lips as he watched the queen of England gently handling his manhood. _Oh, God. I cannot. I… what is she- Oh, God._ His thoughts, awarenesses, came fleetingly and at breakneck speed. He wanted her to touch him, stroke him. Her wedding ring glared up at him. He could smell her perfumed hair, from which, uncharacteristically, a single curly lock of hair had escaped. It bounced defiantly outside her coif. Had he done that? He was moments from ripping off that stupid matronly hood from her gorgeous hair when she startled him by looking back up at him. Her eyes were wide and blue, and he could not read them. Was she afraid? Did she want to stop him? After all this, he no longer wanted her to stop him. There was no absolution, no going back. It was not now or never; it was just, simply, now.

Her expression was so… so lovely, so beautifully mixed with lust and apprehension, that he could not resist kissing her again, a long, languid, reassuring kiss. As the kiss lengthened past a quick connection of lips and tongues and stretched into something more meaningful, he felt Anne move beneath him – truly, he was standing over her now, rather than just before her. He could easily sweep his jacket over her shoulders and bring her whole body to rest against his, or bend down and kiss the backs of her delicate shoulders. He felt her shifting and sensed that the time had come. She returned his kiss fiercely while peeling her skirts up from where they had toppled slightly, still holding his robes out of the way, and spread her legs further for him. He could not stop himself any further, and, never breaking the kiss or separating his breath from hers, Cromwell entered her.

The feeling of his member inside her at last – it seemed an 'at last' sort of feeling, although less than half an hour before she had wanted to kill him – shocked her. She had forgotten her apprehension of his size during his steady kiss, and now that size forced its way where before only his finger had been. Cromwell was not being tender. Her previous annoyance with him flared a bit at this, but unbidden, a yelp came from her mouth as the quivering and wet flesh between her legs tried to adjust quickly to his entrance. He had not entered her more than a few inches. The noise she made was much too loud for… for their circumstances. As though any of this was acceptable, given their circumstances, she admonished herself. Acceptable, or even conceivable. God, she was going to hell. Or the Tower. Or both, probably not in that order.

Irritation exploded within him at her crying out. What in the devil's name was wrong with her? _Is she mad? Anyone could have heard- _his thoughts stayed as he realized again what they were doing, and that her crying out was the least of the problems with it. _Blasphemy_. Pushing away the screaming of his senses to stop what he was doing, Cromwell focused his annoyance and confusion on the woman in front of him instead of on the action itself and accordingly, instead of stopping himself before he took her fully, he clamped one hand over her mouth, glaring at her. Instead of fear or apprehension, Anne's gaze was full of resentment as it had been before. Their anger with each other resurfacing, queen and secretary, connected just barely by their intimate organs, stared at one another in mutual exasperation and challenge. She tried to shake his hand from her lips, but when he held fast, she sank her teeth into his fingers. Snatching his hand away from her and using it instead to cradle her upper back and head as he leaned her backward on the desk, Cromwell shoved the rest of the way inside her. This time, Anne sighed, her body welcoming him. Her bare legs lifted and wrapped around his back, and she pushed her pelvis upward, forcing him deeper.

He sighed in response to her, bringing his other hand to peel back the lace collar at her neck, that stiff, unappealing thing. Crinkling it back against her shoulders without a care of its laundering specifications, Cromwell's mouth was at the most tender, succulent part of Anne's neck, his teeth scraping at the point where it met her shoulder. The lace tried to rally and return to its formed shape, scratching against Cromwell's cheek, and he ripped it from her neck in one deft stroke, popping off one of the buttons as he did so. Knowing this would infuriate Anne, Cromwell glanced guiltily at her incensed blue eyes. Sure enough, one hand came out to slap his cheek, and as she swung, his bigger hand intercepted hers, palms flat against one another. He traced his fingertips along hers, and their fingers laced in the space between them as he began to thrust harder and faster. Anne's breath shortened and quickened again, starting to come in little gasps. God, if only he could get her out of that dress. He wanted to touch her, feel her, taste her. Everywhere. _But_, he thought as she tensed and flexed her body even closer to him, digging her fingers into his shoulders and stifling a throaty gasp, _if I cannot, this will do_.

Her pale legs quivering around his robes – yes, he could feel them quivering even through the layers of garments he wore – would have been enough to arouse him to the point of desperation. But Anne's body was singularly expressive when she was in the act, just as it was when she danced. She alternated between letting her head drop backward and snapping it forward, squeezing her eyes shut, depending upon the sensation. He longed to stroke between her legs again but sensed that she would not be pleased with that – and anyway, he did not have the willpower to stop his thrusting long enough to do anything. She seemed pleased with him, he noted, always looking for signs of approval. Their fingers still intertwined, Anne's other hand strayed from his shoulder to his neck, then up into his hair again, knotting through his curls the same way that his own fingers often did. She brought her cheek to his and, at a particularly deep thrust, pressed the length of her face against his, her sensual little gasps tickling his ear. He burrowed his nose against her hairline, inhaling the rosewater, one arm still wrapped around her back and shoulders, the other in her own hair. That one bouncing curl was taunting him, bringing back his earlier fantasies about her hair, unbound, cascading over her shoulders. No, that was not the truth. He was imagining her curls falling over _his_ shoulders, smooth and cool, covering her breasts, as she leaned down to kiss him in bed. A bed, two people, no clothing. That was the proper way to do this. Not on a desk in an office without fully removing any piece of clothing. He almost snorted out loud when, at the moment of imagining this more proper scenario of lovemaking, he felt Anne's fingers twist his hair tighter in response to a soft kiss on her neck at the depth of a thrust. She let out a tiny moan, a discernable "oh," and tightened her legs around him. _A bed indeed. As though there is anything at all proper about any of this_, he chided himself.

She felt him nudging at her hood and wanted to stop him before he removed it, but she did not have the strength. Thankfully, he left it be, but his fingers were buried in her hair, moving around in the mass of pinned curls that Nan had so carefully constructed. God in heaven, he could not take them out. She'd never manage to get it back up again. Not that anyone would really notice other than Nan herself, she admitted. It was almost comical that she had the presence of mind to worry about how she would appear after the Master Secretary had her, but had not had the good sense to stop their resentful desire from turning into lovemaking. This was no time to laugh, though, and Anne's mind was blank with the sensations of Cromwell's member delving deep within her, stroking her slick muscles in the most sensual manner she could imagine. It was like magic. She had enjoyed lovemaking with Henry, of course, because it was an act of love and passion. There seemed to be a spell over this moment with Cromwell; she had put the gravity of their actions from her mind and found each stroke of his manhood immensely pleasurable. The way he was making love to her was different; his annoyance with her continuing impositions into his business was evident. Yet his fierce lust for her, having materialized just in the past minutes, meant that he was as determined to pleasure her as he was to best her in whatever argument they were having. The result was quivering, competitive mutual desire, a senseless carnal connection, and what she recognized to be quite heightened physical sensations. The physical sensations were incredible. The thrusting, the angles, the squeezing, the kisses, the way they gripped one another. Her body was on fire, and her intimate muscles were reacting to him in a way that she had never experienced before. Several times already she had wanted to cry out.

Anne felt him shudder, and her eyes widened in alarm. He knew what it meant too. Suddenly, she was filled with an intense desire to make his orgasm other-worldly; he had been shrewdly determined to please her, almost to the extent that it could have been described as more a contest to prove something than lovemaking. She wanted to be the final victor, in that sense. His kisses grew harder, his thrusts more frantic, his grip on her and in her hair tighter and more desperate. He growled, his mouth closed firmly to mute the sound, against her hair. Suddenly, Anne pulled her head back and, when he turned his face to her, kissed his lips firmly, advancing on him with her tongue and flicking it against his. He stopped breathing for a few moments, then let a strangled groan escape into her mouth as he returned the kiss. She looked into his face to find him staring at her, his eyes swimming with a thousand emotions and thoughts, and he held her gaze for a moment before kissing her again. She sighed against him, running her tongue across his lower lip and feeling that nearly push him over the edge. His lips were back on her neck, a safer place, he decided, in an instant. He felt her heart pounding in the tender skin there, and followed the vibrations to her jugular, kissing the pulsating spot on her white neck and feeling, for the first time since Elizabeth died, a physical connection with another human being. Anne felt it too in that moment, and before she could stop herself, she gripped his head to her neck tightly. Cromwell's member hardened even further inside her, and in return Anne clenched her inner muscles around him. That broke him, and he frantically found her mouth again in what was not a kiss, but rather a series of mutual gasps and barely stifled moans as he spilled into her, his climax seeming to last hours. "Oh, God," he rasped against her lips as their union culminated, his member still pulsating as if it were not ready to give her up.

They remained in their position, queen reclined slightly on the desk, legs spread, in the iron grip of the secretary, who had a pair of white ankles crossed like a crucifix atop his back, hands in each other's hair, catching their breath, heads bent toward one another, eyes closed, for some moments after the final shudder.

Suddenly, their identities came rushing back to them. They had dreaded this moment, and rightfully so, for now, as their post-coital thoughts turned to the implications of this folly for both of them, neither could fathom a reason for why they had done what they had done; neither could even bear to face what they had done. Slowly, mutually, they removed themselves from physical contact. Stepping back from the desk, Cromwell subtly pulled Anne's skirts down below her knees and righted his hose, straightening his jacket. Anne sat up straight on the desk, then slid off and placed her foot into the shoe that had fallen nearby, reaching up to straighten her hood and smooth her hair. She turned around to locate her lace collar as Cromwell inspected his chain of office, then turned around, buttoning the collar back into place as best she could with the missing button, to find him holding out her other shoe to her. Nodding thanks, she accepted his hand for balance to put it back on. Tugging at the tight fabric across her shoulders, Anne reached toward Cromwell to pat down his hair, noting with an inexplicable touch of disappointment that he flinched away from her slightly. Facing one another at last to inspect appearances, it took several long moments before they could meet each other's eyes. Anne licked her lips and then bit down on one; Cromwell's face was etched with anxiety. What was there to say? What could one possibly say at a moment like this?

Breaking the gaze to look anywhere but at his face, Anne murmured, "'Oh God,' indeed."

**A/N: **Well, this was my first time writing anything of this nature. I do hope it came off well. Good day!

**UP NEXT: **

I must admit that a section of the next chapter is what I tend to consider my best piece of creative writing yet, so I am very excited about it! A little preview:

Henry caught his reflection in the mirror. "Apples," he sneered at himself in that same voice, which he supposed was girlish. His fingers sought the bag under a stack of clean linen shirts. His eyes remained rooted on their reflection. "Oh, yes, I simply must have some apples. Not in season, you know, but that matters not… what I want, I certainly must have at once. And what I want," he paused as he thought he felt the velvet bag, then realized that he had not, "is apples! Apples, apples…" Frowning, Henry pulled aside first one linen shirt, then the next, agitated that he could not find the bag. Had some light-fingered page made off with the necklace? He would roast him on a spit in front of Greenwich. His voice reverted to normalcy as his hands sought the little pouch. "Fucking apples."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** I would like to thank EVERYONE who has reviewed! And I am so glad that you all liked the last chapter so much! To both MrsPhantomSylvia and WhenThePawn84: I do not think that I could write two stories at once! I am veryyyyy into this one. Maybe after it's finished?... I may develop a bit of Harper Lee Syndrome. It would take just the right story for me to want to write it; and I am also a tad busy with my thesis, so my energy should probably be utilized there… but this is such a welcome distraction. I cannot help myself. (PS, MrsPhantomSylvia, I am also listening to "Think of Me" right now!) BoldLikeBlack, I've not seen True Blood… but I do love James Frain. Pandora, I do hope to continue to surprise you, but not to an outrageous extent. One of my main goals here is to make my characters and plot believable. I want it to be imaginable that this story is woven through the scenes of the show. And you will see that the charges develop in an interesting way. TO ALL: Was it hate sex? Do they hate each other? What effect will this have? Stay tuned! (I'm caffeinated, FYI.) And ANNA! So lovely to have you. Welcome. You'll see the purpose of the apples bit in this chapter. I'm so glad you are enjoying!

So, here we go… second-to-last chapter in this day. Then we'll pick up the pace a bit. Yay!

i.

19 April 1536 – Evening

The world around her moved slowly, thickly, sluggishly – but she was only aware of her own body. Her skin was warm and sateen. Her hair laid heavily against her back, scratching the skin there a little. She wanted to move it, but she did not want to move to move it. Instead she peeped over her knees, where her chin rested. She could see her bare feet, her long white toes, the delicate bones that flexed with even the slightest movement of her ankle. Her body warm, her face cool, droplets sleepily trickling down her temple, she wondered when she would begin to shiver. Her complete stillness had lasted what seemed like ages; the silence enveloping her had stretched, unbroken, for a lifetime; sooner or later, she would begin to tremble. Her lower lip wet, her upper lip dry. Comfortable up to her jaw, already a bit chilled at the tops of her knees and the upper half of her head, she resolved to never leave this bath. She would stay here until she died. What use? If she could get some hot water now and again, it should not be too terrible an existence. A bit pruny, she supposed.

Her household buzzed around her, determined though she was not to hear them. She was alone in her bedchamber, but her maids and her ladies were blustering about just outside, only luck having kept them from intruding upon her until now. All evening she had smiled at them, made polite conversation, and played her role. These rare, beautiful few minutes – for she knew that they could not in fact last, they never did – were golden. Alone, she had time to find peace, speak to God, think of her daughter, compose letters or poetry. Play music. Read. Ease her worries.

Unfortunately, tonight she did none of these things. Naked as a newborn in her bathtub, she thought of Thomas Cromwell. She wanted to stop thinking of him, for she truly feared that she might sicken in her rose-perfumed bathwater. Staring across the surface of the almost still water, she asked herself for the thousandth time if it had really happened. She decided for the five hundredth time that it must not have. It was too… too… false. There was nothing reasonable about it, nothing believable about any of it. It must have been a dream, a strange fantasy, brought on by eating some strange food. For God's sake, who would ever want to do that with a man like him? It could never have happened in a thousand years. There was no reason that it could have happened. It had not. And yet she could still feel his hands on her, the places he had touched her. Balled up under the surface of the water, her fists could feel his hair, his neck, his velvet. She was fairly sure she would have a cut on her palm from grasping his chain of office so vehemently. Her toes, which she could still spy if she strained her neck forward, curled a little when she thought of his hands between her legs. And most secretly, most damningly, she could still feel where his member had been, inside her. Her thighs squeezed together, those minutes that they had passed in… sin? Abandon? Preposterousness? …were nonetheless frightfully real. He had been there. _Dear_ _God_.

There came a delicate knock against the thick door. "Your Majesty, may I enter?"

Anne's chin quivered a little, rippling the water. She watched the waves spread outward and flatten, then run into the rim of the bath and die. "You may," she responded without lifting her gaze.

Nan approached her cautiously. The queen had been strange, almost catatonic, all night. She was distracted in conversation, staring into the air as though watching a play. Nan desperately wanted to know what had happened with His Majesty this afternoon, although she imagined that it had not been favourable, but she would never dare ask. As she watched her mistress, Nan was taken aback by how young she looked, curled up in her bathtub. Anne was not generally a shy woman, and her maids certainly knew all of her secrets. It would be more in character for Anne to lounge back in the steaming bath while one maid washed her hair, another cleaned her feet and a third shaved her legs, carrying on a stream of chatter even under the worst circumstances, probably not noticing when a kneecap was nicked or a rough patch on her heel was missed – although her hair must always be perfect. But tonight Anne was quiet, small, and remarkably still. She had waved away her maids, saying, "I just wish to soak this evening, ladies, thank you," and sinking down in the hot clear water. They had left her alone, and Nan had intended to let her take her time, but nearly an hour had passed and they had heard nothing of her. Now looking at her, Nan could tell that Anne had washed her own hair, but it did not appear that she had done much else but sit there. The water must be cooling; the queen would not be comfortable for much longer. Nan waited, hoping for an order, but Anne's gaze did not move up to her.

"Your Majesty?" Nan asked timidly. "May I help you with anything?"

Anne wanted to laugh out loud. _Oh, Nan, if only you could_, she answered silently. Instead, "I was just enjoying a bit of peace. You would not believe, Nan, how little peace comes with queenship. One cannot possibly imagine. I surely did not." Nan was uneasy; this was not a conversation she wanted to have. But Anne continued on, trippingly, almost as though Nan were not even in the room. "There is so much to think on, to worry about… to ponder. So many things require one's attention, and often one cannot satisfy all of those things, so one begins to wonder what one should be doing foremostly, and secondarily, and so on. But one's judgments never feel adequate. One's intentions never feel honourable enough. One's actions, one's endeavours, one's… love… never feel… enough. Never at all. One looks for the reasons, and one cannot understand them – and suddenly, one can, and one wishes that she had not looked at all. And one makes mistakes and cannot forgive oneself. And that gives one even more to think on and worry about." The queen sighed. "Does that make any sense? That is why it is difficult for me to find peace." Anne said it, she herself knew, as much to try to convince herself as anything else. What she had said was true, but at the moment, it was more difficult for her to find peace because she kept reliving the adulterous sin that she had committed that afternoon. Not that she could tell Nan that, or anyone, ever. For that reason, she hoped that eventually the self-assurances that it had not happened would win out and that that quarter hour would evaporate into nothingness, into thin air, as had the heaps of steam that rose at first from her bathwater. Until then she would play her part and keep what little peace she could manage to find in this sluggish, hot-then-cold world of hers.

Nan cleared her throat nervously, obviously confused at Anne's petit tirade. She was not unaccustomed to lectures or sudden bursts of chatter from her mistress, but Anne had had a very difficult day and seemed in need of something. Nan wished that she knew what. She wanted to help her lady to find the peace that she craved, but had no real way of doing so. She also wanted to tell Anne that in fact, being the queen's principal maid was a position singularly lacking in peace at times like these as well – but of course she would never say such a thing. And for the vast majority of the time, the lack of peace was a positive thing; the queen was such a bright and vivacious woman that to be in her service was more than most women could dream of. But in times like these, these long, heavy silences between them, Nan looked at her mistress and knew that she as well would have no peace tonight, for anxiety on behalf of her lady. She shared Anne's discomfort, or so she imagined. She could never say this, could never express a sentiment like this, and so instead she said, as always, the things that she must say.

Delicately, Nan plucked up a drying sheet that had been warming all this time before the fire. It was hot and dry, a perfect toasty temperature. She held it up brightly and moved toward Anne's bathtub in the middle of the room, an island of peacelessness. She smiled. "Come, my lady. Let's get you out of that bathwater."

ii.

"The fruit you requested, Your Majesty."

Henry's eyebrows raised as his eyes swiveled sideways to find the speaker who broke his reverie. Not bothering to take his chin from his fist, he indicated a small carved table to his side. "There."

The page carefully placed the small tray onto the table, bowed, and was gone. When he was safely out of the room, Henry plucked a piece of fruit from the bowl without looking to see what it was and took a bite. It was an apple. He dropped it back onto the tray, disgusted. Of course it was a fucking apple. Why would God not want to taunt him today? Then it would not be like every other day.

The mockingly sweet, crisp taste of the fresh apple was bitter in his mouth. "I crave apples," Henry muttered to himself in a ridiculous, high voice. "I have the most undeniable desire to eat apples." He hauled himself out of his chair and crossed the room, kicking the tasseled corner of an oriental rug back into place where it had been flipped up. Adjusting his furred robe against the increasing chill of the night, he wondered whether he should have them build up a fire, even though it was late April. But then again, a weak constitution was not a reputation that he wanted to have. Even if he were cold tonight, he would brave it.

As Henry passed by his own great bed and looked at the perfect, smoothed layers of bedlinens that awaited him there, he imagined what it would feel like to have a woman to warm his bed again. Jane. Sweet, lovely, soft, warm Jane. He imagined that she likely smelled like honey and country air and everything else soothing. How could she not? That was what she represented. By God, she was the only woman he wanted in his bed for the rest of his life. Difficult to imagine that he had once felt that way about his lady wife. A few dozen good thumpings they'd had, and nothing to show for it but another fucking girl. Two lost princes. A lot of shrieking and flapping about of arms. Henry turned away from the bed in disgust, the mere thought of Anne ruining the contentment he felt when he considered his life with Jane. Running his fingers through his hair and stepping toward a chest of drawers with a mirror attached to the top, Henry sought the necklace he'd had made for his sweet Jane. He just needed the right moment to give it to her.

His fingers fumbling in the top drawer for the velvet bag, Henry caught his reflection in the mirror. "Apples," he sneered at himself in that same voice, which he supposed was girlish. His fingers sought the bag under a stack of clean linen shirts. His eyes remained rooted on their reflection. "Oh, yes, I simply must have some apples. Not in season, you know, but that matters not… what I want, I certainly must have at once. And what I want," he paused as he thought he felt the velvet bag, then realized that he had not, "is some apples! Apples, apples…" Frowning, Henry pulled aside first one linen shirt, then the next, agitated that he could not find the bag. Had some light-fingered page made off with the necklace? He would roast him on a spit in front of Greenwich. His voice reverted to normalcy as his hands sought the little pouch. "Fucking apples."

The bag was not there. Panic began to course through Henry's veins. That anyone would dare to steal from him. It had to be there. There was no other explanation. Yanking the drawer out further, Henry picked up the shirts one at a time, shook each one out, and flung it behind him. His eyes ablaze with anger, he resumed his mockery. "The king says," he paused again as he came across one shirt with Katherine's black Spanish embroidery. For some reason it suddenly irked him to see it. Balling it up into one fist, Henry slammed it down onto the ground and watched its defeated form sprawl helplessly. "The king says it is a sign that I am with child!" He squeaked with unprecedented shrillness, an evil smirk lighting his face as he stared at himself in the mirror. Straightening his robe across his shoulders, he tossed another shirt behind him. Still no necklace.

"But I tell him that it is nothing of the sort."

Henry felt a tightness in his chest. How he hated her. God, how he hated her. "No," he murmured softly as he lightly shook out another shirt, then lobbed it over his shoulder. "No, there has been nothing of that sort, has there, sweetheart? My little queen?" His hands stilled and he looked himself full in the face, trying to see the young man that had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn. He saw nothing of him. "You once accused me of stealing your youth, madam, but it appears that it is you who took mine. All these years, and where is my son?" Henry gripped the rim of the drawer as though he would break it. "Dead. Two sons dead." His eyes brimmed with tears. "My boys dead. And why? Because you…" he fought to compose his breath. She was not worth crying over. "You… are a witch." The word on his lips lit a fire in his heart, enraging him and threatening to burn her by the strength of his feelings alone. "A little witch, a beautiful, perfect…" he gently tapped his fingers on the top of the dresser with each adjective, "graceful, lovely," he snorted as he admitted the last: "intelligent, witch." For a moment he swore he saw her over his shoulder, through his teary eyes, her beautiful pale face, her dark glossy curls, her squared shoulders and tiny, flat waist. He turned his head and she was gone. Had he conjured her? Had she been there? He ran a hand through his hair. _God help me, for I know not what I see… sweet heaven, do I still love her?_

The thought that the witch could make him feel her presence in his heart even after all she had done to him, and now that he had his sweet Jane and was on the brink of happiness at last, snapped his composure. Scrabbling in the drawer, desperate to find the velvet bag, Henry babbled to himself. "Apples, sweetheart, you want apples? I'll fucking give you apples. I'll have them feed you apples until you sicken. I'll have them drown you in apple cider in the Tower. A lot of fucking apples I fed you, and all that time and effort spent to have you, and what did I get in the bargain? A witch."

He had almost reached the end of the drawer, and no velvet had touched his fingers. Feeling on the edge of madness, Henry began shoving at the sides of the drawer, hoping that it had just been pushed to one side. "And now," his voice began to rise as his anger engulfed him, "now I will rid myself of you. You think you have power over me, but you are mistaken, my sweet. My beautiful, fascinating…" Henry yanked the drawer out of the chest and held it to his stomach with one arm, searching with the other. "Evil, witch. I will be free of you, and I will marry my sweet, gentle, loving Jane. I will be rid of you, never have to look at that face, or kiss those lips, or touch that body, or bed you, ever again. I will marry Jane, and we will have beautiful sons, and I will never look back. I will forget you entirely, all those years, of waiting, loving, fighting, sharing, dreaming…" breathlessly, unable to stay the sudden stream of memories which polluted his mind, Henry was almost shouting. "All those years… _all that time…_"

Henry turned the drawer over and sent it crashing to the ground. Out of breath, his hands on his hips, he surveyed the damage. White shirts, like lone snowballs left during the spring thaw, littered the area around him. The drawer had not broken but was lying, defeated, on the stone floor. Panting, unable to stop himself, Henry allowed himself to sink to his knees and fold his body into a ball, thighs atop calves, bending forward at the waist, his head in his hands just above his knees. Rocking very slightly back and forth as he tried to catch his breath, Henry forced the bombardment of memories of Anne to cease with effort. "All that time…" he whispered to himself, letting a few tears escape into his palms. He dared speak the truth to himself, alone, in his chamber. He would say it, acknowledge it, just once. He would accept it as fact, and, knowing that it had been a mistake, would pretend to have never said it and move on with his life. No one could understand this part of being king, this utter loneliness, not Cromwell, not Brandon, not Anne, not even in those early days. Not even Jane, his sweet, understanding Jane. He would face it alone, acknowledge it himself, set it aside and let it die on its own. Wishing he could, he nonetheless knew that he could not move past it until he had admitted it to himself out loud.

So there, among the spots of white on the richly upholstered chairs, and the one dangling from the candelabra on the ceiling, curled up like a child, the drawer that did not contain the necklace for his third wife turned over in front of him and the shirt that his first wife had made him lying behind him, Henry gasped in emotional frustration and exhaustion, choked back the remainder of his tears, and finally, having steadied himself, quietly admitted the truth out loud.

"All that time… and you were worth it."

He said the words, and he heard them, and he let them go, and they evaporated, and they were gone. And there was stillness all about him. Peace. Peace at last.

After some minutes, the king of England picked himself up from the floor and gingerly turned over the drawer, thinking to clean up a little before a page came in and saw the remnants of his tantrum. When he set the drawer back into the chest and reached for the first clump of shirts, his hand froze. There, on top of the soft linen, was the little velvet bag which held his gift for Jane. Where had it been all this time? He picked it up carefully, as though it was a gift from God. He pressed it to his lips and murmured thanks, then set it on top of the chest of drawers. Looking around the room, he saw the mess that Anne had caused him to make. She had always caused him to make messes, he thought. Running a hand through his hair, he chuckled a genuine chuckle and shook his head. "Apples," he muttered. "You fucking witch."

He turned from the mirror once and for all. "Boy!" he shouted, summoning the page. The page appeared at once, dutifully not batting an eye at the chaos in the room. "I am ready for my bed."

The page bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty." He picked his way across the floor, tactfully ducking so as to not dislodge the shirt from the candelabra – one never knew in these situations if the king meant things to be that way – and helped his king ready himself for bed. Henry's robe came off, and he slid between the sheets in his nightshirt, looking content.

Henry imagined Jane beside him again. Her blonde hair falling across his bare chest as she nestled against him. Her soft skin against his, their bodies warming each other. Unfortunately, he had never had that opportunity with her. So, try as he might, he could not rightfully conjure it. The only woman with whom he had had recent, prolonged experience was Anne. He knew her body and she knew his. There was no way around it. And therefore, he comforted himself, until he could make Jane truly his, he would be content to remember what it had been like with Anne while mentally replacing her with Jane. That would do. Yes, that would do. Cromwell would be quick, he had no doubt. It would not be long. And it was no betrayal. He wanted no one but Jane in bed with him.

The page was almost to the door when he heard the king behind him. "Boy."

Turning, the page bowed again. "Majesty?"

"You can write English, yes?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Henry waved his hand vaguely in the direction of his chair. "I need you to write a brief remembrance for me. Sit." The boy did as he was told, dipped his quill and waited. "Write… one week, Marquess. Two weeks, Earl. Three weeks, Viscount. Four weeks, Baron." After the scratching stopped, he glanced over. "Have you got it?"

The boy blew on the wet ink and looked up proudly. "Yes, Your Majesty."

Henry smiled at him. "Thank you. You may go. Good evening."

"And to you, Sire." Another quick bow. Again, he almost made it to the door.

"One more thing." The page turned. There was a long pause. The king was not looking at him. He was not sure if His Majesty was falling to sleep or had changed his mind, but finally, he spoke. He flicked a hand toward the table again.

"Bring me that apple before you go. I've taken a bite. I want to finish it."

**A/N: **Hope you enjoyed – I am in love with writing this story. PS, I need opinions - do I add the genre 'Romance' here? It's not really a romance, in the least, as you may have noticed. But I feel that might encourage people to read it and there are also, ahem, romantic aspects here. **Wink.** What do you all think? Review and give me your opinion! :)

**UP NEXT: **

She sat still and listened. No one was there. No one was coming. She was alone. She gathered her damp hair over one shoulder and held it there, brushing it in long strokes to dry it in the heat of the fire. She stopped every time she thought she heard something and listened, often glancing about her skittishly. She half-expected her husband, with rage in his eyes, to storm into the room and snap her neck without a word. Or maybe he would call her a whoring jade and knock her to the ground first. But it could not happen, she told herself. It could not. Henry could never know. If he knew that it was her, then he would know that it was Cromwell as well, and she could not decide which of them he would kill first.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Happy Halloween! I hope it is wonderful for all of you. Here we go with the next chapter, not particularly long, but hopefully enjoyable.

Anna! I am glad you are seeing the implications of Henry's rant. A hint about the Earl/Marquess/Viscount/Baron note: they don't refer to people currently invested with the ranks. And you are right, Cromwell does not become a baron until the summer of 1536. Also, I actually have many more chapters to go; it's just that we're almost finished with this day (19 April 1536) and I figured we'd all be cheering since we've been stuck here for 8 longggg chapters. I agree with you that many people's lives would have been longer and easier were it not for Henry… but, as I am madly in love with the man (the historical version, not JRM's – not to imply anything about the actor, who is fabulous and plays him as Hirst created him), I have to say I wouldn't change a thing about his reign.

WhenThePawn: I'm going to add angst. That sounds like a solid idea. I hope that in addition to the spite and resentment, it was clear that Henry has some serious internal conflict regarding his feelings for Anne. I tried to put that in there without shoving it in anyone's face. It will become important later on. : ) And for the love of God, get out of your writer's block! I can't wait to see what happens when Jane has her baby… I bet Cromwell and Lissie are going to have a fight about something. Although that's a safe bet to make.

MrsPhantomSylvia, thank you so much! I really appreciate that. I had not intended AT ALL for the Henry segment to turn out that way. I had a little note to myself about what it would be, and it was supposed to be thinking that stupid Cromwell was taking too long on finding a way to rid Henry of his wife. Then I thought, "Well, maybe Henry is hankering for a bedtime snack," and then came the apple, and it all just ran from there. For some reason I was tickled pink at the thought of Henry mocking Anne in a high, girly voice, sneering at himself in the mirror. I was so happy with it at the end – I often feel like Henry is hard to make human, especially during this turbulent time where one has to understand him as one-third a monster, one-third a suitor, and one-third a truly conflicted and heartbroken man.

Pandora… well, Henry is, at this point, a little mad. I think that his obsession with Anne pushed him to such an extent of frustration in the years of the Great Matter that there was always a bit of madness associated with his love for her thereafter. Given the present circumstances (Anne not having learnt to be a submissive wife, the lack of a son, his sense that Jane is safer, sweeter, just all-around easier to be with, and his lack of freedom from Anne), I think it is quite reasonable to say that Henry is a bit crazy here. I am glad you're intrigued; hopefully I can maintain that!

BoldLikeBlack, I'm saddened to hear that! The real Henry was even more complex and fascinating than Hirst's version. But, of course, to each his own. Is there a character in this period that you do like in particular? Henry is a bit of a spoilt child, yes… but I can't think of one king that inherited a throne who wasn't. HVII wasn't, because he didn't inherit – he stole the throne, and he knew the implications of that, and he didn't have the luxury of being spoilt. Henry has no reason not to be, and while it is annoying, it helps him bring about all the changes that he eventually does… not to mention making for a heck of a good story.

And now, on with the chapter!

i.

19 April 1536 – Late Evening

He checked the figures again. And once more. They were the same as the first time. "Calm yourself," he lectured out loud. "They are correct." He blew on the ink, then surveyed the sums scrawled across the bottom of the page. England, and its king, would be richer than any country on the Continent. He had spoken the truth when he had told the queen this. Now he surveyed his handiwork – not only the calculations, but the greater enterprise which was the pulling down of the monasteries – with a sense of accomplishment. He had set out to do it, and he had done it. All was as he had hoped.

And yet things were far from what he had hoped. There was a fair amount of stirring and discontent about the monastic project, particularly in the north; much more than he had predicted. The people did not understand the reasons for closing the houses, but what was worse, they presumed to understand them. They did not see the need to strip Rome of its usurped authority in England, to cut the depravity which so often overtook monastic life off at the source; they only saw that their traditional parishes were being dismantled and carried off to London. They did not see the good that this would precipitate; they only saw that the old order of things was being changed. They did not care to understand that nowhere in the Bible did the Lord call for such a hierarchy; they only saw that the king's recent advisers had helped to bring this about, and that was enough for them. And that was because the people were stupid, he reminded himself. _God bless and keep them, but there is a reason that they toil in the fields with a scythe all the day and I sit in council with His Majesty. It is the difference between their mental capacity and mine._ What he did was in the interest of England. Someday they would see that – and if they did not, someday someone would. Until then, he was just pleased that they did not care enough, or could not spare enough time, to organize in any recognizable way. _For if they did_, he warily admitted to himself, _they would surely be clamouring for my head._ Or maybe it was the other way around: maybe if they realized that they could use him as their scapegoat, they would muster the orderliness required to take a real stand against the monastic project. _God forbid either one should ever occur_.

Cromwell had spent many an evening performing two tasks at once: usually undertaking some clerical task with his hands and mind, and worrying or pondering upon another with his heart. He could not help that he was a creature who over-considered everything. And it had brought him this far, he reasoned. No sense in trying to stifle himself now. This evening, he should have been finishing and reviewing the sums regarding the recent monastic closings in the northern shires, preparing to have an audience with the king tomorrow, and in some periphery, worrying about how to soften the public reaction to the project. Instead, his mind was singularly occupied. He could ignore it no longer; he had finished his work, and he knew that he would be unable to focus on any new task. His mind had been overtaken, a rare occurrence, and one upon which he had not been this fixated for years. A woman.

Her name was Elizabeth. She was his wife. Or, she had been, until eight years ago. Married for twelve years, widowed for eight; all in all, twenty years ago he had been a bridegroom. Elizabeth was a fair, amicable woman, intuitive, thoughtful, understanding. A perfect wife. A loving mother. A terrible loss. He thought of her eyes, those sweet doe eyes that he liked to let himself get lost in as a young man. They were large and deep, framed with thick lashes that made her look like an angel. He remembered every inch of her, every nuance of her, every moment of their lives together; he had never let it go, as he had never let her go, because he had never said goodbye to her. Away for a few days at the height of the sweat one summer, he had come back to a household where no one wanted to meet his eyes. She looked like a porcelain doll in death, not like the soft, companionable woman that she had been in life.

As he had done not a few times since her death, Cromwell slid down in his chair, tipped his head back, and let himself remember her. A light smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose remained into adulthood from what had been there as a child; they made her seem even sweeter, even softer, than she already was. Her slim shoulders, her light, wavy hair, her shapely legs… he had loved her more than life, more than most husbands, he had realized, loved their wives. She was more than a wife. She was not the type of woman about whom men jest in taverns, drinking and clapping one another on the back until the night outside turns more still than death. She was the type of woman who made her husband want to come straight home to her. She was the type of woman who reassured her husband without speaking, who calmed her children with a gentle touch and nothing else, who made a man stay in love with her when she had been dead eight years. The beauty of Elizabeth was that she did all this without trying. For months after her death, Cromwell had slept on his side, facing away from her half of the bed, halfway between angry that she was not there beside him and fearful that God would answer his prayers and send her as a ghost to startle him. He wanted to see her sleepy brown eyes open and blink the drowsiness away momentarily when she felt the familiar shift in the mattress that was her husband. He wanted to feel her nudge across the mattress to him, nestling her warmth against him, murmuring, "Good evening, sweetheart. I trust you found the supper I left for you? The children are well… I missed you today. Is all well with the cardinal?" He knew she never expected lengthy answers, knowing his body so well that she could tell when they would nod off to sleep together. When he was agitated or needed her, though, she never failed him. Her head would tilt back, her fawn's eyes opening again. "Are you well, husband? Tell me what troubles you." A soft kiss on the lips would get a quick summary of the day's progress and problems. A yawning smile and a little urging would earn her more of his troubles, and when she sat cross-legged on the mattress and took her fingers to the back of his neck, kneading what she called his 'thinking muscles,' he was pudding in her hands. She was supportive, loving, and tender, always.

He had often wondered if he had been as good to her as she was to him. She always said to him, "You are the perfect husband, Thomas," but had he really been? It always seemed, in retrospect, that she had been supporting him, listening to him, comforting him, sharing his burdens. Had he adequately shared hers? Her tender touch as she stroked his hair, her soothing voice as she whispered to him in the dark, her soft smile when he paid her any special attention or kindness, all seemed angelic now. He belittled himself for not appreciating her when he had her, for life without her, in all honesty, was bleak. His work for the day finished, he usually began some extra task, knowing that there was no head of sweet-smelling hair waiting to rest on his shoulder when he got home, that there was no one to share any of his concerns, that there was no one ready to tell him stories of his children and distract him from any anxieties that he had contracted that day. Why bother rushing home to bed? Why even bother spending much time in bed at all? Beds were for husbands and wives. When he got into his bed at night, the sheets were cold. He stayed on his side of the bed, slept what little he had trained himself to need, and arose, ready to assume the offensive or defensive, ready to accept whichever of those might be required of him. There was no chance that anyone might leave him a love note in his dossier; there was no chance that he would get distracted in London by a pretty hair ribbon or a little pearl brooch that he saw and decided simply must be given to his wife; there was no chance that he would finish his work quickly and rush home for an evening amongst his entire family, retiring early with his wife so they could enjoy each other as they wished. For Elizabeth, there were none of these things anymore, and yet he could not let her go. He had seen her sleeping her statuesque sleep, had touched her cold hand, and still he could not let her go. Even though he knew that the last night he spent with her had been in ecstasy, and then coziness, between the sheets of their bed, and even though he knew that she, with her smiling face and kind brown eyes, would wish him good tidings and happiness, and even though he knew that he had not betrayed her, tonight he felt as though he was no longer entitled to feel like he could not let her go.

Still slumped down in his chair, Cromwell propped one elbow up on its arm and lowered his head, face-first, into it. His mind finally allowed to wander, he relived the sensations of those soft, full lips on his skin. Those graceful, delicate fingers. That flawless ivory skin. He could still feel the passing of her breath past his skin as she exhaled, or moaned, or gasped. His fingers could still feel the fistful of pins as he knotted his hand into her hair, the heaving of her collarbone as he proved himself to her, the desperation of her kiss as she forced herself not to beg him for more. His mind could never do away with the image of those wide eyes, gazing up at him in surprise, in confusion, in newly discovered desire. Those wide, clear, blue eyes. _God, those eyes._

"I slept with the queen."

He whispered it out loud, his fingers picking at his lower lip, the quietest whisper he could manage. He had just wanted to hear himself say it. He no longer had the right to call himself Thomas Cromwell. Thomas Cromwell was the king of England's most loyal subject, a perpetual mourner for his dearly departed wife, a lawyer, a politician, and above all, a self-made man, and none of that agreed with who he had, with one act, become. This afternoon he had fucked His Majesty's wife, and there was no turning away from that. While he could, and would, conceal it, he had to face the fact that God had watched them, watched as he lifted her onto that desk, watched as he pleasured her, watched as he entered her and made love to her. He was a traitor, he was an adulterer, he was a criminal, and a fool to boot. The past thirteen years had been spent establishing himself in politics, the past seven in painstaking service to the crown, and when it came down to it, he had taken the queen of England in his private office, as easily and heartily as one might take a second taste of fig pudding at dinner.

Unfortunately, Anne Boleyn was not exactly fig pudding. She was the scheming, shrilling, nosing wife of an anointed sovereign – come to think of it, anointed herself – and Cromwell's current project was to be finding a way to get rid of her. And where had he even gotten the notion that he could, or should, or even wanted to, have her? He supposed that she was beautiful. Granted. But that did not mean that he had ever desired her. Where had this come from? This sudden burning desire to wrap her in his arms and please her and make love to her? Raking a hand through his hair, Cromwell thought to himself, _maybe she really is a witch._

It mattered not, for, unlike fig pudding, there would be absolutely no second helping. Furthermore, as far as Cromwell was concerned, there had been no first helping. Cromwell was on his feet, one hand on his hip, the other rubbing at the muscles above his eyebrows – some of his 'thinking muscles' needed attention, as Elizabeth would have informed him – as though he could massage into his brain the notion that it had never happened. He would forget it, shut it out of his mind. The way he had shut out of his mind Wolsey's demands for help when Cromwell had to choose between fight and flight. Cromwell had chosen to survive then, and by God, he would survive now. Henry trusted him. That was all that mattered. If anyone were ever to find out… this thought stopped him in his tracks. But no one would ever find out. How could they? He would certainly not be gossiping about it. And the queen was no fool; she knew what would happen if any taint of adultery touched her. Giving anyone any indication of what had passed between them that day would be akin to signing both their death warrants. He chuckled at the irony: earlier that day he had been considering piling some false lovers on her reputation in order to get rid of her, and half a day later he was trying to forget that they had copulated right there on his very desk. If anyone were ever to find out, which they would not, Cromwell would defend himself that he had been bewitched by her, weakened by her so that she could gain some power over him and, by extension, the king. A far-fetched tale if ever there was one, but it was impossible that anyone could ever find out.

But then there was the other, more interesting, aspect: the queen had consented. Although most men at court would die to bed the queen, Cromwell felt no flattery, no rush of confidence, at his conquest. Instead, he saw the simple fact that Anne had engaged in sexual relations with someone who was not her husband. She had touched him, had spread her legs willingly for him, had enjoyed him, had sought to pleasure him. She was an adulteress. Not that he was any better, apparently, but there was the major difference that she was a queen and he was a secretary – and more importantly, a secretary who was looking for grounds to rid himself of said queen. Her adultery mattered, for his purposes, much more than his own. And with her removal his transgression would be wiped clean, as though it had never happened. In God's eyes, he was a sinner – but he had been a sinner before. He worked for the greater good of Christ's word. _A sinner is allowed to sin from time to time_, he reasoned with himself, knowing it was weak but unable to come up with anything much better to excuse his actions. He would square himself with God later. For the moment he needed to handle the situation in front of him. For political purposes, he was untouchable. _For_ _now_. He rubbed his temple. He just needed to unseat her, to cement his offensive against her and just get rid of her, to move against her, and quickly.

She probably feared what was happening, and now she probably feared him. She had been so shaken at their first argument today that she had nearly cried. She was probably so confused after their second encounter that she had withdrawn into herself, and if he played his hand properly and kept her on the edge of uneasiness, she would stay there, too afraid to do anything else. The key to unseating her cleanly was getting everything in place before she had time to recover from the shock and form some plan of her own. By the time she rallied, it would be too late and she would be off the throne and out of his way. Her reputation needed to be slandered to the point that, should she attempt to point her bony finger against him in the future, the damage would already be done and no one would believe her. She needed to be isolated, discredited, and removed. That was all.

Having reasoned his way through this, Cromwell took a moment to consider their relative positions. He smiled, a genuine smile. He held the power here, utterly and totally.

Suddenly, a yawn escaped him. He did not yawn often.

He did not talk to himself often, either, but he found himself muttering, "If anything, it will help me get rid of her faster." He went back to his desk, straightening his papers and sorting them. "An adulterous witch – could a secretary ask for an easier queen to unseat?" A chuckle. "Come morning, I will send a note to His Majesty, the king and I will commune on the best course of action, and the fall of Queen Anne Boleyn will be set in motion." Another inexplicable yawn. He thought about sitting down, and then remembered how long it had been since he had gone to bed early. "As for now…" he surveyed the neat stacks of paperwork and correspondence. "I think I will retire. It has been a long time since I have had a long night's rest."

Cromwell blew out the candles in his office, then crossed through his presence chamber, adjacent to his private office, and found his way to his bedchamber. He had not been to any of his homes in a fortnight. After all this time, a room or a bed or a painting might hold painful memories that he did not care to face on a daily basis. His properties were there for the members of his family to enjoy; his place, in recent years, had been with the king. In a fond way, his rooms at the palace now felt like home. Cromwell's eyelids felt heavy; he removed his chain of office and hung it up, then kicked off his shoes and began to remove his jacket. In a moment he would call for Mrs. Lockton, his chief maid, to please have the tub brought in for his nightly bath. She would be surprised at the early hour, but she would cluck and nip at the boys enough to have it done quickly so that Cromwell would, he assured himself, be sinking into bed within a half hour. Smiling a little to himself, Cromwell rolled his head from side to side, stretching his thinking muscles out, draped his jacket over a chair, and looked down to find the drawstring to loosen his undershirt.

Rosewater.

As soon as he dipped his head he could smell her on him. Before he could stop himself, he inhaled deeply, relishing a smell other than the perfunctory soap and shaving solution. Rosewater was certainly sweeter. Like a little boy who has sneaked an extra piece of mutton when his mother was not looking, Cromwell allowed himself to inhale deeply, repeating the offense thrice more and savouring it as though it was in addition to his assigned portion. As though he had any right or reason to be smelling rosewater perfume in the first place.

He opened his mouth, the name of his chief maid on his lips, ready to summon her and sink into his nightly bath. Something stopped him. Slowly, he tugged open the collar of his shirt, untucked it, and removed it. He could still smell it. Inhaling deeply again, he removed his breeches and his hose. Standing naked in the middle of his bedroom, he could smell it. Experimentally, he retrieved a nightshift from a chest, pulled it over his head, and straightened it. He dipped his head once more. He could still smell it.

_Well, _he thought tentatively, trying to reason with himself, _mayhap I will just bathe in the morning. Just this once. It is a nice smell, after all, regardless of its giver. One quiet, secret night spent reveling in the scent of a woman… _a tiny snort of ironic, almost bewildered, laughter… _well, it cannot be any more blasphemy than I've already transacted today. No harm done. _

Cromwell got into bed carefully, as if making sure not to shake off the pleasant vapours. He pulled the sheets over himself and settled his head onto the pillow, lying flat on his back. In the darkness of the room, he found that he was once again afraid that Elizabeth would appear beside him, catching him unawares. He apologized to her aloud, asking her to forgive him this one indulgence – and, incidentally, that other one earlier. That had been less an indulgence, more a mistake. "I love you still," he vowed softly. "Pray God you understand this." He stared at the ceiling, remembering his frenzied visions of Anne, naked, on top of him in bed from earlier that day, and shuddered at them. What in God's name had come over him? _Maybe she really is a witch._

Yet he inhaled her scent and turned on his side, away from his wife's side of the bed, and fell asleep as though he had not rested in days. His sleep was dreamless.

ii.

She really disliked sleeping on wet hair. To be fair, she was not asleep. But she disliked it nonetheless. It was dampening her nightgown and she could feel it clumping and sticking to her skin. Irritably, she flopped back over onto her stomach, twisting her head sideways to lay her cheek against the mattress. She pulled all of her hair back from her face and spread it atop the blankets, hoping it would dry. Her knees and feet closed firmly together, her toes pointed and the soles of her feet facing straight up from the bed, she found that she could not relax and sleep. This position hurt her neck. She tried curling into a ball on her side, stuffing a pillow under her head and bringing her knees to her chest as though to protect herself. Predictably, this did not help either. She was not falling asleep. It was not her hair that was keeping her up.

Frustrated, Anne heaved herself from her bed and found the dressing gown that hung next to it. Shrugging it on, she found a few small pieces of firewood for the dying fire and built it up. She stared into it for a long moment, then went to collect her hairbrush from her vanity table and lowered her exhausted body into a padded chair before the fireplace. She sat still and listened. No one was there. No one was coming. She was alone. She gathered her damp hair over one shoulder and held it there, brushing it in long strokes to dry it in the heat of the fire. She stopped every time she thought she heard something and listened, often glancing about her skittishly. She half-expected her husband, with rage in his eyes, to storm into the room and snap her neck without a word. Or maybe he would call her a whoring jade and knock her to the ground first. But it could not happen, she told herself. It could not. Henry could never know. If he knew that it was her, then he would know that it was Cromwell as well, and she could not decide which of them he would kill first. First she would think, _surely Cromwell. Surely_. His chief minister making love to his wife, invading the territory that he had staked out as his own, even if it was not particularly valuable to him anymore? But then she would consider herself: his past obsession and present wife, in law bound to honour and obey her husband and king, letting his closest adviser take her on a desk in the middle of the afternoon? Maybe when Henry came in here to kill her, he would be dragging Cromwell along by his hair. Or, she thought, looking down at the long damp locks that her fingers held, maybe he would drag her to Cromwell's office and rouse the secretary from his sleep to kill them both together. But no one knew but the two of them, and Cromwell would never tell a soul. How, then, could Henry find out? She tried to comfort herself. He would not. He simply could not.

If it came to it, she was not above claiming rape. She had made him so angry that he had been possessed, and he had forced her. Her word against his - despite the public distaste for her, she would have the support of the masses. What woman has no sympathy for another woman who has been forced? As Anne sat staring into the flames before her, she imagined Cromwell being burned alive for raping the king's wife. She imagined his writhing, his protestations that she had consented, her private smirking as she silently agreed with him. She imagined his screams, his flesh bursting and peeling and turning black.

A smile crossed her face, but at the same time, in her imagination the screams of Cromwell and the splitting of his flesh transformed into Cromwell's gasps and stifled groans as they had made love that afternoon, the taste of his skin and his lips on hers. The hairbrush drifted to a stop as Anne pictured them together on that desk, remembering the way that he had twined his arms around her, so forcefully. Lovemaking had never felt like that before. She knew why: it was because it was wicked. Sinful. Just horribly wrong. Yet her inner muscles had responded to his touch, and to his thrusts, and that she could not deny. Wrong as it was, she closed her eyes and relived the sensations of hands, lips, sighs, that they had shared. Her inner thighs were actually strained from squeezing his hips so tightly between them. They were tender to the touch and ached when she moved them. This reveling in the act between them had nothing to do with Cromwell. It was simply a result of having intimate contact with someone, anyone, after so long. Moving her chair closer to the fire, Anne gave in entirely and brought her knees to her chest, both feet now on the seat in front of her. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head on one shoulder, exposing her neck, imagining warm arms, gentle hands, a soft kiss on her shoulder. No velvet robes. No chain of office. Not Cromwell. Certainly not. Just... a man. Henry. A man. Someone who cared for her.

"I am lonely," she whispered to herself, a few tears snaking from her eyes. She sniffled in, trying to grab hold of herself. Rubbing her nose against her dressing-gown-covered shoulder, she tipped her head forward and rested it on the tops of her knees. Again she murmured, "I am very lonely."

She could have sworn that she felt hands on the back of her head, stroking her hair gently, comforting her. Anne took a deep breath. She wished that the sensation could be real, that she was not just conjuring it. But of course, there was no one there. Peaceful and quiet was everything within the queen's chambers. A rare thing, she thought. Then she smiled, and then giggled. The irony of it all came crashing down on her at once. Her giggling turned into outright laughter. "The Queen of England," she smiled to herself, "surrounded by adoring ladies and young men, never a dull moment, and yet I am lonely." Curled into a ball, she began to shake with laughter. "Married to the handsomest, most virile man in the country... and I somehow wind up reclined on his secretary's desk, making passionate love to a man that I hate." Her nose burned and more tears fell down her cheeks, although whether they were out of sorrow or hysteria she could not tell. "This morning I dressed as a spinster, worrying about losing my husband to a woman as virtuous as myself, and this afternoon I betrayed my vows and lived up to what they call me... 'The Great Whore.' The absurdity of it. And I am lonely." She clapped a hand over her mouth, gulped down the urge to keep laughing, and wiped her cheeks dry. This was ridiculous. She needed to grab hold of herself and do something productive. She would write Henry a letter, begging audience and stating that she had something important to tell him. Maybe that would pique his interest. And then she would throw herself on his mercy, pleading for one more chance. It was the only way. Anne stared into the flames, imagining the reconciliation between them. She knew she could manage it. She had to. His love for her survived within him. She simply needed to reawaken it. What a golden world it would be if she could.

Anne dozed off, composing the letter and imagining soft, lingering kisses on her bare shoulders above her nightgown, trailing up her neck, past her jaw, and finally to her lips, while gentle fingers ran through her warm, damp curls. She awoke a quarter hour later. Shrugging out of her dressing gown and leaving it on the floor in her wake, like a secretary bowing in obeisance, Anne rolled herself into bed, mumbling a vow that she would write the letter first thing in the morning, and finally sleep claimed her. A thick feeling of comfort blanketed her, and a satisfied smile graced her lips. That night, she dreamed of Jane Seymour wearing Anne's red velvet ennoblement gown, hanged in chains from London Bridge, her honey-wheat blonde hair stringy and limp. The chains that encircled her body and that priceless gown were gold chains of office. In a dark clearing in some faraway shire, Anne made tender, intimate love to her husband next to an open fire, gasping and crying out one another's names. When the fire got too hot on her cheeks, Anne turned her head the other way to shield her skin and she noticed Thomas Cromwell, in breeches and an undershirt and without his robes or chain of office, taking notes on the coupling of the king and queen of England.

**A/N: **Hope you loved it! : ) Leave a review and let me know what you think – and next chapter, we're on to the next morning, at last!

**UP NEXT: **

With a wave of his hand, Mark understood that he was dismissed. He only made it a few steps, though, before Cromwell could not resist. He tapped the unopened letter on his desk, hard, making a thin crack resound in the room.

"And just out of curiosity, who do you think are and are not my enemies?"

Mark froze, thinking he had offended. He glanced guiltily over one shoulder. _Careful_, Cromwell cautioned silently. The boy needed to learn how to guard his tongue.

Brushing his blonde hair out of his nervous face, Mark pressed his lips together. "I must admit, sir, that it is difficult to tell who are your enemies and your friends."

_Bull's eye._ Cromwell winked. "Precisely."


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **Hello all! Deepest apologies for not having updated before. Like everyone else, I'm a student, papers, exams, blah, blah… I promise it shan't happen often =)

Pandora, that's exactly the reaction I hoped to bring! I think that the figures in history were remarkably similar, and on the show not too much of that is highlighted. My goal is to continue to portray them in this way – as I find them, individually, to be the second and third most fascinating people in Henry's reign. I loved writing Anne's dream – I may have another dream or two described in the future!

MrsPhantomSylvia, I am so glad I made your Halloween, and I hope that I make this night for you as well!

Anna, hello again! So glad that you're becoming a regular reviewer =) I agree with you that their act haunting them makes for some interesting reading, and although their moment of folly will most definitely have consequences, they do not involve a Cromwell baby in the Tudor nursery, so for that I must apologize! Anddd, I realized that my inclusion of a character named Mark was confusing. He's different than Mark Smeaton; he's a page of Cromwell's. To make things unconfusing, I'll always clarify if I'm referring to Smeaton.

LadyJaxs, there will be a great Cromwell/Anne interaction a few chapters from now, but not much before that – I want to keep them spaced out so that each one is even more delectable, but I will try to keep you entertained in the meantime!

Yaya, welcome! I'm so glad you like it! One of my main goals is to make it a believable, realistic story where the characters have actual depth and an element of humanity. So, for you to say that it is believably written is a great compliment – thank you very much!

i.

20 April 1536 – Early Morning

This was one of those glorious mornings where one senses, rather than is awakened by, that first drop of sun in the sky. The soft, gentle mistress of morning reached in through the bedroom window of Thomas Cromwell and, with deft fingers, nudged him awake. He willingly obliged. Rolling over in bed and burrowing his face into his pillow for just a moment, he noted the presence of rosewater and let it go, tossing the covers to one side and standing in the middle of the room. He opened the door on the opposite side of his bedchamber and called Mrs. Lockton who, true to form, was not only close by but also had two pages on standby, having already begun warming bathwater. She bustled into the room, perfunctorily smiling at Cromwell as though he was a helpless child, and began tidying and pulling out clothing for him to don. "Did you sleep well, my lord?"

He smiled. "I did, yes, thank you. I went to sleep early."

"I noticed. It was a good thing, I think, my lord; it had been a while since you had done so, and if you'll excuse my saying so, you were looking a bit melancholy when I brought your supper last evening. Not unhappy or in poor repair, mind you," she amended diplomatically, "as a matter of fact, you looked pleased, but… drawn at the same time. As though you had come to a good stopping point and needed a rest."

Well, that was one way of putting it. He chose not to think on the implications of how he had looked last evening overmuch. Better that way. "I assure you, I got the needed rest. I feel fresh as a dewdrop," he chirped. She liked him cheerful, and it caused her to tut at him less, so more often than not he obliged her.

The boys had finished, and his bath was ready; Mrs. Lockton had finished, and his clothes were laid out. She was always trying to convince him to employ a Master of the Wardrobe; after all, he had countless clerks running about transacting his business, what was one man to help him dress? He had always responded that he was perfectly capable of dressing himself, that he was not a nobleman and had no need for extravagant dress, and that she did a much better job of taking care of his clothing than a fleet of Masters of the Wardrobe could, on top of all else that she did for him.

He stood alone in his room once again, looking at the steaming bathwater before him, and in a series of swift movements, he pulled his shift over his head, chucked it into the fire that Mrs. Lockton had stoked up before she left, and sank into the tub, curling up into a ball and dunking his head under the surface of the water, not much caring that it scalded him. Resurfacing, Cromwell rubbed the water out of his eyes, pushed his wet curls back on his head, and muttered, "That should take care of the rosewater." He washed quickly, rose from the water like a man reborn, and dressed, all the while whistling a merry tune. He took a look at himself in his mirror. Sighed. Smiled. _I am fine._

A cluster of young clerks awaited him in his office. "Nicholas, would you please inform Master Riche that I would like to speak with him at his pleasure?" The one to the far left bobbed his head and scuttled out. "Thomas, go and collect some messages from the petitioners outside. Transcribe them – you know how. I'll expect a stack on my desk within the hour." The second one scuttled out even faster. "Will, see if you can't find me some better parchment, and ink – this batch is drying up." He waved a hand; Will was the one who knew where all of the supplies were. This was an easy task for him. Finally, only Mark stood before him. Cromwell picked up an early – or late; maybe it had arrived last evening – dispatch from Cornwall. Pretending to read it, he crooked one finger and beckoned Mark closer. At the ripe young age of twenty, Mark was the personal page of Cromwell who reminded him most of himself. Mark approached the front of his desk, and Cromwell waved his hand sideways, indicating that Mark should come around to where Cromwell sat. The boy did so, not showing any anxiety other than a discreet swallowing. Cromwell waited until Mark stood to his right, and then put the dispatch down, staring straight ahead. "Mark," he began, "I'm in the midst of a project. I am sure you have noticed." He waited. Mark betrayed nothing. _Good boy._ "I am stuck behind this desk, you see-" a hand gesture, a chuckle "-because that is my job. This project is very important, but that means what?"

Mark spoke for the first time, clearing his throat. He was timid. "That you mustn't let anyone see that anything may be amiss, sir?"

"Precisely. My eyes and ears, much as I require their functionality for this project, must needs stay in here with me. That's what I need from you. I need you to be my eyes and ears." He said this as though Mark was the only page to whom he had ever said this, as though internal espionage within his own court was a new innovation. As though Cromwell did not have men and women all over this palace. But Mark was different; more than a paid-by-the-word informer, Mark was a protégé. "I need you to continue to be, and continue to look like, any one of my young clerks, bustling about, doing my bidding – but I need you to have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox. And be that stealthy and quick while you are at it." He looked at Mark for the first time. "This is no small commission, Mark. It will be difficult, and you may not think that you are providing me with anything useful, but if anything, _anything_, seems amiss, I need you to report it to me. It might be a matter of life and death." Mark nodded. "Can you do it?"

"Yes, yes, sir," the boy nodded eagerly.

Cromwell smiled, patted him on the shoulder. "Good lad." He picked up a stack of papers and tapped their edges on his desk, straightening them. "Dismissed."

Mark bobbed like the others and made his way toward the door like the others, but unlike the others, he stopped in front of Cromwell's desk and turned back. "Sir?"

"Yes?" Cromwell did not look up.

A pause. "What is it… that is… what am I looking for? Who am I to watch?"

He only let the most outward corners of his mouth turn up, not wanting Mark to think he was smirking at him. He glanced up at the boy, then leant back in his chair, holding an unopened letter in one hand. "Who do you think you should watch, Mark?"

There was a look of bewilderment, replaced quickly by hope. "I think… everyone. Everyone, sir?" Closing his eyes and smiling like a proud father, Cromwell nodded encouragingly. "Not just your enemies, but everyone. And I am looking for everything. Nothing more specific than that…?"

"Quite a task, eh? I give it because I have faith in its recipient." A little flattery never hurt a lad. With a wave of his hand, Mark understood that he was dismissed again. He only made it a few steps, though, before Cromwell could not resist. He tapped the unopened letter on his desk, hard, making a thin crack resound in the room.

"And just out of curiosity, who do you think are and are not my enemies?"

Mark froze, thinking he had offended. He glanced guiltily over one shoulder. _Careful_, Cromwell cautioned silently. The boy needed to learn how to guard his tongue.

Brushing his blonde hair out of his nervous face, Mark pressed his lips together. "I must admit, sir, that it is difficult to tell who are your enemies and who your friends."

_Bull's eye._ Cromwell winked. "Precisely." Pleased with himself, Mark finally got take his leave. On his way out, he nearly collided with both Richard Riche and Will, who was hauling a large parcel of new parchment and a jug of fresh ink. Mark bowed to Riche and calmly went on his way. Watching his steady retreat, Cromwell thought he had done well to take him on. "Morning, Master Riche. You are to be congratulated on your new appointment." A knowing smile passed between the two of them. Yesterday, Riche had been formally appointed the Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations that would handle the spoils of the monastic dissolutions. This was Henry's way of making it look as though Cromwell was not singlehandedly crushing the Roman Catholic presence in England; the decision had been made quietly some time before, but Henry had wanted to wait until the parliamentary session ended before making the actual appointment.

Beaming, Riche bowed his head. "Thank you, Master Cromwell. And how fares the kingdom?"

Cromwell stretched his head to one side. "Wonderfully." Cromwell pushed his chair back a bit in order to allow Will access to his desk; discreetly, the boy scooped up the offending parchment and drying ink and replaced them with new, tucking extra parchment into one of the desk drawers and filling the inkwell from the jug that he had just brought. "Thank you, Will. Why don't you go and help Thomas? He will probably need it." The boy nodded and dutifully quitted the chamber. "So, Master Riche, how are things looking for your new court? Has His Majesty mentioned any assistants that might be aiding you in your toils?" He gestured to a chair, which Riche dragged up to sit opposite Cromwell.

"I'd like it to be Brandon, but one can only fantasize," he responded devilishly. Cromwell smirked back.

"Well," Cromwell sighed, plucking a piece of parchment and finding a pen, "I have to say that despite the duke's… shall we say, antipathy toward the Reformation, if he knows that His Majesty-"

High heels in the corridor. Cromwell's heart stopped.

"Are you all right, my lord?" Riche glanced over his shoulder.

"Ah – yes, yes," Cromwell huffed, eyeing the door nervously. _She would not dare_.

The heels clattered closer and closer, and then the door flew open. There stood, in all her glory, Mrs. Lockton, with a tray with two mugs of warmed apple cider. "Begging your pardon, my lord, but the cook just mixed this up. Thought you might like some."

Relief washed over him at the sight of her, and he could honestly have kissed her, so happy was he that she was not a wide-eyed porcelain doll with a sharp tongue and fingernails to match. "That is fine, Mrs. Lockton, no need to apologize. Thank you," he added as she deposited the mugs in front of him and Riche. Riche nodded thanks as well. It was delicious. "… Where was I? Ah, yes, the duke. Well, I think that he will just have to come round. His Majesty will not countenance any other." A helpless shrug, as though he pitied the man. "What can one do?"

Grinning, Riche shook his head and took a sip. "Nothing. And everything," he added.

Dipping the quill, Cromwell chuckled. "Exactly. Feel free to talk; I'm just going to begin a quick message to His Majesty."

"You and everyone else," Riche remarked off-handedly, taking a sip and glancing toward the window where the sun had risen to a reasonable level in the sky.

"Oh? Who's that?"

"Well, not _everyone_," Riche amended. "Just the queen."

Cromwell nearly choked on his cider. "I beg your pardon?"

Distractedly, Riche took a sip. "The queen is writing to His Majesty too, so I believe." Riche smacked his lips, completely unaware that Cromwell's throat had closed. Cromwell tried to swallow.

"How do you know that?" he asked carefully.

A shrug. "I passed a royal page on my way here. He asked whether I thought Her Majesty's ladies would be awake at this hour, because he had been summoned by the queen to messenger a letter, when she finished it, to her husband. He did not know how to approach entering her chambers without a maid present at this hour and did not think it meet to linger outside."

Cromwell tried to keep the panic from creeping into his tone. "She summoned a messenger to wait for the letter? Why in God's name would she do that?"

Another shrug. "Who knows. Probably to get it there as quickly as possible when she's finished writing it."

_Oh, God. She is going to tell him. Oh, God, she is going to tell him. She is. She cannot. She cannot possibly be. Oh, my God. What else could she possibly be in such a panic to say to him? She is going to spin it some way, she is going to blame me somehow. She is going to do to me what I was going to do to her, but first. He will not believe her. He will believe me. He has to. What if she appeals to him in person? He is gallant; he will never take kindly to her charges that something happened at my responsibility. If he does not believe her… he will not. He cannot believe her. He hates her. He trusts me. But he will wonder why she would fabricate something like that, and then… and then what? It could ruin her. It could ruin me. It could ruin us both. Not even the act, but the suspicion of it alone, could ruin us both. Oh, God. I have to get there first. There is no other way. I have to get to him first._

Trying to maintain a mask of calmness, Cromwell smirked a little. "Women," he offered, weakly, with an ironic roll of the eyes.

Riche guffawed, then drained his cider and got to his feet, setting the empty mug on the desk. "Indeed. Good for one thing, eh, Cromwell?"

Cromwell glanced up in alarm. Did Riche know? _Of course not. Do not be a fool. How could he know? He will never know. _"Surely." He smiled up at Riche. "Duty calls?" He tried to keep the relief from his tone.

"Unfortunately." _Thank God._ "Would that I could stay here and drink cider with you for all the morning."

"Another time." His smile felt forced. "Unfortunately, we have a country to run and a church to repair, so there is considerably less time for warm beverages than one would optimally like."

Riche held out his hand, and they shook. "Good day, Master Cromwell. Let us convene soon for a bit of strategizing."

He forced sincerity. "Indeed." _Get the bloody hell out of my office._ "Good day, Master Riche."

When Riche was gone, Cromwell bellowed for Will, who came rushing down the corridor and stood at attention. Cromwell was scribbling frantically, his face set into harsh lines, betraying his usual steady countenance. "Stay right there," Cromwell muttered, without looking up. As though Will would have moved from that spot. Onto the fresh parchment, Cromwell poured the most tantalizing comments on the queen's suspicions and interventions possible, turning the phrases in such a way that the king would have to be suspicious of her in turn. If only that original letter had not gone into the fireplace yesterday. This would have to do as a quick replacement. His quill scratching on the paper, Cromwell imagined Anne at one of her ivory-inlaid ladylike desks, writing in her graceful hand a womanly, emotionally gripping letter to her husband, containing God knew what sort of lies and ambiguousities. _Women are such liars. Not that I am any better._ Before he realized it, he had pictured her, just for a moment, in a dressing robe over her nightshift, her hair loose, her eyes still heavy from sleep. Biting her lip, as he was biting his lip. _Stop it._ Shaking that image from his mind, he finished the letter – it would have to do – and sealed it. "Get this to the king, immediately," he told Will as the boy hurried over in anticipation of a command. "See that it is taken straight in to His Majesty, and come straight back here to confirm that for me."

"Yes, sir," Will nodded and was gone.

Cromwell let the stillness of his office wash over him, trying to calm his crashing heart and drumming his fingers on his desk. After several deep breaths, he lurched to his feet and stormed into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. He leant against the door for a moment, then crossed the room, his pace steady. Glancing at the fire beside him, he saw the last remnants of the linen shift that he had burned because it smelled like her. He ran a hand through his hair with a ragged sigh. Before the window, he stopped and threw himself on his knees. Clasping his hands, he bowed his head over them and whispered the prayer that his mother had taught him as a child, a prayer which he now realized needed not be spoken in a church to a priest but might be used to communicate directly with his maker.

"Forgive me my sins, Oh lord, forgive me the sins of my youth and the sins of mine age…"

Tavern fights, dunking his friends in the Thames, daydreaming about killing his father. Throwing down a saintly queen, a prince of the church, and two men whom he trusted would be shortly canonized by the bishop of Rome. _Forgive me_.

"The sins of my soul…" he gulped. "And the sins of my body…"

Those soft lips, those eyes, that slender neck, those thighs, that tongue, that perfumed hair, those tiny knees, none of which he had any right to. The sin against his king and his wife and his son and his life and, yes, his queen. On that desk where he had just appealed to her husband to hear him. _Forgive me._

"My secret and whispering sins, my presumptuous and my crying sins…" A deep breath.

"The sins that I have done to please myself. And the sins that I have done to please others."

Perhaps the second was forgivable, perhaps it was even noble. He had built his career committing the latter sin. That was his duty. And yet his most damning sin, the one that could ruin him, had been to please only himself. Or maybe to please himself and her. He would not think on that. He had always comforted himself that he was doing what was in the best interest of England and the church, and yet what part of that had been in either of those interests? He did not, as she had said, love only himself. In this moment he had absolutely no love for himself. What had he done? _Please forgive me._

"Forgive me those sins which I know, and those sins which I know not."

He could not end it there. He tried to make his mouth form the word, "Amen," but instead, he sank down onto the floor, his body folding into a ball, his clasped hands on his knees, his head hovering slightly above his hands. "God, in your mercy, I beg of you, get me through this crisis. Please, do not let her win. I realize that I have committed a great sin and, like all sinners, deserve to die, but I beg you to let me survive this. I vow to stay away from her if you will only preserve me. Only show me the way to live and I will try harder to follow the right example. Please forgive my sins, please… please help me to avoid sinning more. Please guide me, oh Lord." He exhaled deeply. "In the name of Jesus Christ, my saviour, may you have mercy upon my wretched soul and preserve my undeserved earthly life. In the Lord's name, Amen."

ii.

20 April 1536 – Morning

Daniel tried to stifle a yawn, and almost succeeded. He was exhausted. He had not been up an hour yet.

His Majesty was getting dressed. Or, he was supposed to be getting dressed. Instead he was flitting about the room, distracted by this or that, ignoring completely Daniel's subtle attempts to steer him in the direction of the clothes that were draped upon the royal bed. The Master of the Wardrobe had set out several doublets for Henry's perusal and had stepped from the room to enable the king to make his decision so that the garments could be warmed and perfumed for His Majesty, after which the Master and his assistants would dress the king. The whole process normally took half an hour or so, but today Henry had barely glanced at the clothing. If he was not running off to open a window and bask in the early morning breeze, he was selecting a volume of poetry and reading aloud a sonnet in Italian, or scribbling a quick note to himself as a reminder of some detail that needed attendance prior to the banquet tomorrow evening. Still in his nightgown, no less. In a short spell he would realize that he was late in starting his day and no doubt would grow irritated with Daniel for not hastening him along.

Daniel sighed silently as the king began practicing dance steps in the middle of the room, his arms raised up as though he held a woman between them. A galliard. Henry hopped carefully from one foot to the next, prancing and twirling experimentally at first, spinning his imaginary partner. "One, two, three, four, and step, step," the king of England muttered, watching his pointed toes as he kicked out first one foot and then the next. He bit his lip in concentration. Happily, there seemed to be no pain in his movements; his leg was doing well. He probably wanted to dance the following evening, Daniel thought. Watching as the king danced in a half-circle, sweeping first one hand, and then the next, past his hip, exhibition-style, he held out his arm for his invisible lady again. When the king turned his head toward his extended hand, Daniel knew that he was imagining a demure blonde woman raising her timid arm to meet him. For his part, he remained rooted, forgotten, in the corner, watching the king practice humiliating his wife in secret, probably planning to repeat the action tomorrow night in public. The king looked young again, Daniel was forced to admit. There was a glow about him while he practiced a dance, read a poem, enjoyed sunlight and fresh air. While he thought of Jane Seymour.

Daniel became aware of frenzied footsteps approaching the king's bedchamber. _And so it begins_, he thought warily. The king would never manage to get dressed now. As the pitter-patter grew closer, His Majesty heard it too. "Open the door," he suggested, not checking in his quick, fluid dance steps. "See who it is."

Wordlessly, Daniel crossed the corner of the Persian rug and pulled open one of the wooden double doors to the king's next-closest chamber. A page was rushing across the room, trying not to break into a run. He looked like a dog who had narrowly escaped an impatient boot – or high heel – and feared it still. In his hand he held a small letter. "For the king," he reported breathlessly to Daniel, holding out the letter.

"Your Majesty, a letter," Daniel relayed. As the page met him on the threshold, they turned at once and bowed to Henry. Henry did not notice. He was in the last steps of the galliard, and so the boys were forced to hold the bow while Henry completed the final rotation of the dance, bowed to his imaginary partner, and faced them.

"First of the morning," Henry commented, without a hint of annoyance, much to Daniel's relief. "Who sent it?"

"Her Majesty the-"

More footsteps.

Another young man with shaggy brown hair rushed into the room, at a dead run. "Your Majesty!" He tried to bow while running and nearly lost his footing. Henry waited patiently until he righted himself and bowed properly, now in line with Daniel and the other page. "A letter." He held it out deferentially, not too far in any direction; he could not impose upon the king's personal space with the effrontery that His Majesty should take it directly, but also could not snub the king by handing it to Daniel.

"So many letters," Henry remarked. "So many young men to assist me this morning. Should we start up a chorus?" The joke was lost on them. "Who sent the first?" he asked the first page again.

"Her Majesty, Queen Anne, Your Majesty."

"Ah. My darling wife." The words were hollow, but not mocking. "And the other, boy?"

Will bobbed his head again for good measure. "Master Secretary Cromwell, Your Majesty."

"Naturally." Henry smirked a little, then held his hand out for the letters. "Thank you, boys. You are free to go." He turned away from them and sauntered toward his desk, chuckling and opening the first letter. He barely noticed which one it was as his eyes flitted automatically over the words. "Great distress. Crippling despair. An important matter to discuss with you," he muttered. "Well, judging by the lovely handwriting and overly dramatic prose, I am guessing that my sweetheart sent me this one." He dropped it onto the desk and opened the other. "Ah, and my sweetheart has been bothering my secretary. How very like her." Henry laughed a little; it was absurd. He dropped the second note. On the desktop, the correspondence of the queen and secretary overlapped and covered one another. He turned away from them with disgust, his eyes bright. "Would you kindly do me a favour, my lad?"

Daniel disliked when His Majesty used such generous tones. So often his kindness turned to anger. "Yes, sire."

"Go to the queen's apartments. Find the Lady Jane Seymour. Ask her if she might like to accompany me on a ride this morning."

Bow. "Yes, Your Majesty." He tried to take his time en route from the king's apartments to the queen's, dreading the uncomfortable moment that could result from this errand and praying to God it would not occur.

Luck was not on his side this morning.

Upon entering the queen's apartments, hoping to be unobtrusive, Daniel was unfortunately spotted by a plain young woman whose arms were employed carrying a jewel box. "May I help you, sir?"

"Morning, my lady. I've a message from the king, to-"

The girl smiled. "A response already? Wonderful!"

"Ah – no, in fact… His Majesty has sent a message to…" he paused as the girl's eyes narrowed at him, guessing what he was about to say. "To the Lady Jane Seymour."

The smile drained from her eyes, then her mouth. "I see. I shall locate the lady." She did not have to go far; Mistress Seymour was in an adjacent room, pouring wine into a goblet and arranging a small plate of fruit and cheese for Her Majesty. "A message for you, Jane," Nan Saville whispered to her.

Jane glanced up, her lips parted in surprise. "For me? From whom?"

Nan could not stop the hard look that she gave the blonde as she gazed up at her. "From whom do you think?"

Jane did not react. "I see." She followed Nan back to the outer chamber and smiled at Daniel. "Good morning, sir."

"And to you, madam. I have a message from His Majesty. The king wonders-"

"Nan, I was just thinking, mayhap we should consider the pearls-" the door to the queen's bedchamber opened to reveal a half-finished queen of England, a gown on but with uncombed hair and bare feet peeping out from under her unadjusted skirts. "Oh! Good morning."

She did not call him by name.

He bowed to her, as did Mistresses Saville and Seymour. The momentary silence stretched from comfortable to tense to unbearable, until it was obvious that he did not have a message for her. Painfully, Anne asked, "Have you some message from my husband?"

_Yes. But it is for your lady._ "Ah – that is, Your Majesty…"

She saved him, kindly, taking in the furious blushing of Mistress Seymour and the lip-chewing of Nan. "I see. His Majesty has no response yet to my letter?"

He took the way out with which she provided him. "Not yet, madam. I apologize."

"No matter." She tried to smile. "Nan, shall we?" She held open her bedroom door, through which Nan scuttled like a scolded child. "Mistress Seymour," she threw over her shoulder before she re-entered the room, "when you've finished your correspondence, I would like my breakfast." The door slammed behind her.

Jane visibly cringed, her eyes downcast. "I am sorry about that," she said softly.

"Not your fault, my lady." He glanced at her face. She was pretty. Sweet-looking. "His Majesty wonders if you'd accompany him on a ride this morning."

A true smile engulfed her face. "I would be delighted to ride with His Majesty."

The opening of the bedroom door cut her off again. Jane glanced over her shoulder, guiltily, and sank into a curtsey.

"Jane," Anne said steadily, "I require your assistance. Please finish with this young man and hurry along." Instead of closing the door again, she waited, her wide eyes trained on the blonde-and-white woman across the room.

Painfully uncomfortable, Jane swallowed. "Please tell him that I will ready myself quickly whenever he sees fit to summon me."

"Of course. Good day, my lady. Your Majesty." He smiled back and bowed, then bowed separately and deeply to Queen Anne, and began backing out of this emotionally charged room.

"Good day to you, as well, Daniel." He looked up in surprise and a touch of elation. She favoured him with a small smile.

Henry looked as if he had not moved since Daniel left the room. "What reply?"

"Mistress Seymour would be delighted to ride out with you, Your Majesty. She vows to ready herself at Your Majesty's request."

Henry clapped his hands together. "Splendid! Send someone to tell her to do just that. You help me choose a riding jacket." Suddenly, the king could not get dressed quickly enough. The next half hour was spent comparing fabrics – as though Mistress Seymour would be displeased with any of them – and waiting impatiently for the garments to be warmed. Daniel pointed out when a sleeve or cuff needed a tug or to be smoothed, but kept his place in the shadows of the room. He wondered if the lady was as truly happy to be going for a ride as the king. He wondered if the queen's heart was fully broken yet. He wondered if Henry even cared about either of these things. It seemed to Daniel increasingly true that as long as Henry was happy, nothing, truly nothing, more than that mattered. It was a slippery world to live in when it was also increasingly difficult to make the king happy, and never any work at all to push him to rage.

And so it was with fists clenched in anxiety that Daniel timidly cleared his throat as Henry prepared to make his exit, having received word that Lady Jane would meet him in the Great Hall, clapped his Master of the Wardrobe on the back in thanks for a job well done, and straightened his scabbard on his waistbelt, and queried, "Your Majesty, would you like any reply for the messages that were received this morning?"

Henry stopped and looked at Daniel, and Daniel prayed that he would not break his servant's nose. Ready to move his head backward to absorb some of the blow if it came, Daniel exhaled softly when the king twisted his mouth to one side in thought. Henry's mind was probably dancing with visions of Jane Seymour in a riding hat and jacket, blonde locks streaming behind her as they galloped through the open countryside together. It was no secret who his true sweetheart was. Henry's eyes, but not his head, flicked toward the desk where the two letters lay, still folded over one another like lovers. "Yes. Tell them both… that I will see them at the banquet tomorrow evening." His handsome, glowing face broke into a real smile. "Until then, I am on holiday."

**A/N: **Riche was actually appointed Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations on the date indicated. Yay for historical accuracy! Also, I feel I need to make a few comments about the history behind the story, starting with the character of Nan Saville; in the series, is played by Serena Brabazon, who is a lovely and fairly young woman. There are times in the series where Nan seems portrayed as younger, and times where she seems to be older. For my purposes, Nan is going to be a young woman, we'll say having come to serve Anne in the neighborhood of 1528ish. We'll have her as having been born in 1513, so that she's 23 now. Anne, for purposes of the story, is going to have a birthdate between those that are the most commonly argued (1501/1507) and we'll say she was born in 1505, making her 31 at this point. If she caught Henry's attention (as has generally been hypothesized) in 1525, she would've been 20 then. Academically I tend to side with Eric Ives on her DOB, but for romantic purposes, and to cleave to the youthful appearance of Natalie Dormer (who certainly doesn't look even 31, let alone 35-6), we'll go with that. We'll age Cromwell to be around a decade older than she, aged 42, while Henry is 36. Not accurate, I know, but again, I'm trying to be feasible with how the actors come across. There will be more notes on characters as we come across important ones, particularly Anne's ladies, more of whom we will meet in a few chapters. You'll just have to roll with me here Thanks for reading, review and leave any comments, questions, requests, et cetera!

**UP NEXT: **

"Cromwell…"

The address withered and died, and they were back to silence. Cromwell guessed that Brandon was attempting to decide how to phrase whatever it was he had come to say.

"Just what is it that you are doing?"

A bemused expression crossed Cromwell's face. "I am enjoying the sunshine, Your Grace."

This earned him an audible scoff from Brandon. "You know what I am asking. Be plain with me, Cromwell. Tell me what you are doing."

"I am certain that I do not understand the meaning of Your Grace's question." A steady, even tone. He understood perfectly the meaning of His Grace's question.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **My, my, it's been awhile! I've got this rule that I don't post a chapter until I've got the next one written, and the next chapter is longggggg (as is this one, so please forgive!)… it's still not entirely finished, but it might be my favorite chapter so far. I decided I'd been cruel enough, waiting for a month and all. I hope you all love it, read and review please!

BoldLikeBlack, never fear. There will be a TON more Anne/Cromwell action. There's plenty of time and a huge amount of story left. We've only just scratched the surface – next chapter will be a deliciously tense interaction. Hope this sufficeth you in the meantime!

Pandora, Mark is definitely a little lamb to Cromwell's lion. We'll see exactly where the story takes him, but he's probably not going to get to keep his innocence – what fun would it be if he did? Although I'm hoping to give him a happy ending which I've already got in mind.

MrsPhantomSylvia, Thank you! I love love love you for being the best reviewer ever!

Anna! I am so glad I've gained a long-term reviewer in you. We'll have to see how their sentiments toward each other evolve in future chapters. I am so glad the Mrs. Lockton character is believable! Someone has to be nice to poor Cromwell. You'll notice though that I included the other ages of the characters adjusted to make them about as old as they seem to be in The Tudors, so that's the basis under which I am operating, as painfully inaccurate as that is. If you are writing a Cromwell/Anne story, I am breathless to read it!

And with that...

21 April 1536 – Midday

Cromwell strode through the outermost foyer of the palace, surprisingly eager to make it to the door. It was a sunny, perfectly breezy day, and he could almost taste the sunlight. Several minutes before, he had realized that he had not been outside in a full three days. Fresh air had called to him, a tempting mistress, and he was suddenly eager to oblige. _Just a few minutes_, he had promised himself. _Just a quarter hour to revive myself. That is all that I need._ He passed through the great open doors and the sensations of nature that had teased and tantalized him along the God-forsakenly lengthy journey from his office to the outside world now assaulted him in the most pleasing way. He breathed deeply, feeling the breeze tickle his face and letting the sun warm him in its gentle manner. _What a perfect day_.

Unfortunately, the next thing that he saw was Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his slip of a wife disembarking from a characteristically over-wrought litter, a short distance away on the cobblestones. Must the Duke _really_ have arrived right at this moment to spoil the peace? Cromwell supposed that it was only natural that Suffolk, who had returned home for a few days after the closing of Parliament last week, would be arriving with his wife in tow for the May Day celebrations, but why at this very moment? It was as if God truly would give him no peace. Suffolk's wife was characteristically quiet and watchful – an unattractive thing in a woman of seventeen. She had looked like a sullen child most of the times that Cromwell had seen her, and today was no exception. As her husband handed her carefully out of the litter, Katherine d'Eresby glanced at her surroundings as though she expected them to be different than the last time that she had been there. Predictably, her face was disappointed. She landed lightly on the ground, straightened her skirts, adjusted her traveling hat and jacket, and rearranged her long hair over one shoulder. She murmured something to the Duke. He smiled in response, a real, loving smile, and offered her his arm. Neither of the Brandons had noticed him. _Thank God. _Cromwell tried to avoid looking at them, turning in the opposite direction, toward the gardens and the riverbank and pretending that he did not see Their Graces at all.

He had made it down the wide stairs and was just about to embark on the short path that would take him for his stroll in the gardens when a deep voice halted him.

"Master Cromwell!"

He tried not to let the defeat show on his face as he turned back toward Suffolk, his diplomatic smile in place. He bowed his head. "Good afternoon, Your Grace." He made a real bow toward the Duchess. "My lady."

Cromwell was on the verge of turning back around when Suffolk waved at him amiably. "Hold a moment, Cromwell. I wish a word with you."

_Oh, delightful._ He forced back the urge to sigh dejectedly. Suffolk dispensed a few orders concerning the arranging of Her Grace's trunks of clothing to the attendants scattered about, and then led his young wife to the top of the stairs and the entrance to the palace. The breeze tugged at the Duchess's hat, and she cooperatively removed it, tucking it under one arm and letting her hair tumble down unhindered. At the entrance to the palace, Suffolk kissed his wife's hand. "I shall be up soon," he told her.

For the first time that Cromwell had ever seen, Katherine looked playful. Her eyes even verged on dancing. "Very well," she told her husband lightly. "I shall be waiting."

Mercifully, Brandon did not make a public display of his eagerness to bed his wife, instead giving her a sideways smirk as he turned away and came down the steps toward Cromwell. Cromwell nodded at him. "Your Grace."

"Cromwell." Perfunctorily, "Shall we take a turn in the gardens?"

_I do not want you sullying the gardens which I intended to use for my relaxation, _Cromwell thought frankly, but instead said, "I prefer the riverbank, to be truthful, Your Grace."

"Very well." They moved along the outer edge of the garden together, toward the path that lined the Thames. The silence was not a comfortable one. Hoping to prod Brandon into making his point, he tried to nudge him with small talk.

"How was your journey?"

"It was lovely, thank you. My wife was eager to come to court." A probable lie that was. Katherine seemed to have little love for the queen, as did Brandon, thus making the court an unpalatable destination for such a spoilt girl. "The May Day celebrations are a great joy to her." _Ah. That must be why. Children love those things._ They had reached the end of the hedge-lined row and turned left to stroll along the riverbank, overhung by sweet-smelling leafy trees. "Cromwell…"

The address withered and died, and they were back to silence. Cromwell guessed that Brandon was attempting to decide how to phrase whatever it was he had come to say.

"Just what is it that you are doing?"

A bemused expression crossed Cromwell's face. "I am enjoying the sunshine, Your Grace."

This earned him an audible scoff from Brandon. "You know what I am asking. Be plain with me, Cromwell. Tell me what you are doing."

"I am certain that I do not understand the meaning of Your Grace's question." A steady, even tone. He understood perfectly the meaning of His Grace's question.

"Cromwell," a touch of irritation in Brandon's voice, he turned his head sideways to glance at the secretary, hands behind his back, as were Cromwell's. "I know that you are… _doing_ something. You are always doing something. But this time it is important. I think that it concerns the queen. As third ranking man in England, I ask you to inform me of what it is that you are doing."

Raising his eyebrows, Cromwell injected a bit of surprise into his voice. "Third ranking man in England, you say? Well, I suppose as Duke of Suffolk, you are correct." He kept the mocking undertone in his voice just to be sure that Brandon understood that while technically he could refer to himself thus, in truth the balance of power was much, much different. "I have been working on the plans for the future of the reformation, if that is what you mean. Naturally, it is a project much-beloved by Her Majesty-"

"Cromwell!" Brandon stopped and took a step toward Cromwell, as though he was going to strike him. Unfortunately, Cromwell was just a hair taller, and for all the Duke's jewel-and-fur-encrusted finery, it was plain who was less intimidating. "You are planning to do something to the queen," he snarled up at Cromwell. Then, closer and lower: "And I want to be part of it."

Cromwell pulled away. This was dangerous ground, as close to treason as one got. Despite Brandon's antipathy toward the queen, there was no reason to believe that his intentions were pure. Brandon would never want to take part in a project of Cromwell's, no matter its goal; the Duke's pride simply would not allow that. And what was all this business of asking him out to the riverbank to talk to him about it? It was completely unlike him. It was suspicious. There was nothing trustworthy about it. "I cannot speak on any matter to which you might be referring, Your Grace," he said quietly, continuing down the path, "because I know not to what you are referring."

Helplessly, Charles Brandon watched him go. His chest rose and fall with a combination of anger at Cromwell (although he had not supposed that this would be an easy conversation) and desperation to help be rid of that woman faster. He tramped after Cromwell and fell into step beside him, glowering. He steadied his breath and they continued on in silence, Cromwell wondering when Brandon might leave him alone and Brandon wondering how to word his next sentence to Cromwell. He was nowhere near the orator that Cromwell was. Brandon was no lawyer, no man of letters; he had not taken his place at Cambridge, and although he kept up and pulled his weight in Parliament, Brandon was painfully aware that he, unlike most men at Henry's court, had little intellectual prowess.

The two men came to a sharp curve in the path and, instead of following the left fork, they continued straight, to a clearing that ended in a sharp drop-off to the water's edge. The silence was heavier, and yet more contented, now. Cromwell wanted to skip rocks. Instead he did what Brandon did, which was stare out across the river. He had to admit that it was just as soothing.

"I hate her."

Cromwell almost jumped. He had nearly forgotten that Brandon was there. "Begging your pardon, Your Grace?"

"Oh, don't 'Your Grace' me. I hate her. I fucking hate her. And I know that you do too."

Silence fell again. It was entirely clear to whom Brandon was referring.

At length, Brandon reiterated. "Cromwell, I hate her. I want rid of her. I always have. And you cannot tell me that you do not as well."

"'Hate' is not the word, Your Grace."

"Then whatever bloody word you want to use!" Brandon shouted. "Cromwell. I have always hated her, I have wanted her off that throne since before she sat herself down on it. And finally, finally, His Majesty has seen sense," Brandon rambled on. "You must understand what this means to me, how important this is to me. It is not just power, it is not just influence. She is a horrible, despicable…" Brandon shook his head a little, as though trying to shake out the appropriately degrading adjectives to describe his queen. "… _vile_ woman. She is not a queen. She should not be."

"Your Grace, I –"

"Let me finish. Finally, the king wants rid of her, like the rest of us have from the bloody beginning of this. It's time, Cromwell. It is time." There was genuine relief in his voice. "You and I, Cromwell, we have our differences. I know that. Believe me. But this is bigger than you and I, either separately or combined. For once, our interests are in line. I am offering you my help. I am offering to assist you in this, in any way that I can. You will never again hear me say this, Cromwell, but I respect you. In some ways, sometimes, I even admire you. I want to help, and just this once, I ask you for a commission. Be a gentleman – not that I expect you know how – and for God's sake oblige me."

Brandon's words evaporated into the air and the sweet stillness returned. _Nicholas would probably be better at carrying out an order that I gave him, and I've no doubt that Mark would out-perform Brandon at just about anything, excepting of course love-making and jousting. But… on the other hand, what harm could there be in involving him? He does hate her, it is true. I could use someone with that sort of fire, perhaps. Give him a part in it, smooth his feathers, demand repayment for it later. I can handle Brandon. He is the one putting himself at risk here._ Rubbing a hand over his just-barely-there stubble, Cromwell said without preface:

"There may be some gossip about the queen."

Brandon snorted. "What, that she is a shrilling bitch? Can one call it gossip if it is true?"

Ignoring that slight – _for the third highest ranked man in England, he does not know how to comport himself during a business transaction_ – Cromwell continued, "More along the lines of her behaviour."

"How so?" Cromwell could swear that Brandon's ears perked up.

"An attractive woman, she is – and she knows it."

A slight wrinkle appeared in the Duke's forehead. "Her vanity?"

Cromwell barely hid an eyeroll. "Take it a step further, Your Grace."

"Well… she is…" Brandon looked almost embarrassed. "She does tend to… flirt."

_There._ "I would say it is more than a tendency, wouldn't you, Your Grace?" Cromwell turned his head sideways to look at the Duke. "Consider how men trip after her."

"I see." Brandon nodded. "Do you think there is more to it than that?"

Cromwell chuckled, a broad smile on his face. A wolfish smile. "Well, how could I possibly know, Your Grace? I am only referring to the talk."

"And from whom does this talk come?" Brandon turned now to face Cromwell.

A cluck of the tongue. "Oh, Your Grace," Cromwell tutted in a voice that suggested he would tell Brandon not to be silly. "Who could ever trace a rumour in this court?"

Brandon smiled back now, a real smile. "And more importantly… who would ever expect you to?"

"Or you, Your Grace." This was perfect. Using the Duke to broach the subject with the king was a wonderful solution. If Henry was angry, Cromwell would avoid catching the blame; if not, then Cromwell would run with it.

An inspired look crossed the Duke's handsome face. "And maybe the talk is suggestive rather than merely reportorial?"

Cromwell nodded once in approval. "Maybe it is so."

Brandon took a deep breath. "I see no other choice but to report this talk to His Majesty. As his friend."

"I understand, Your Grace. As his friend, how could you do any other?"

Brandon ran a hand over his hair and faced Cromwell. "I can honestly say, Cromwell, that I have never so much enjoyed a conversation with you as I have enjoyed this one."

"Nor I, Your Grace." That was not entirely true.

"I shall see you at the banquet this evening?" Brandon stuck out his hand, and after a moment, Cromwell shook with him.

"I look forward to it, Your Grace."

The Duke nodded his head toward the palace. "Shall we go back?"

"I am of a mind to take a quick turn in the gardens, Your Grace, but feel free to attend to your other duties." _Go away, please_, Cromwell begged silently.

"Mayhap I should. The Duchess awaits me," Brandon gleamed mischievously. "Good afternoon, Master Cromwell. Enjoy the gardens."

"Good afternoon, Your Grace." To the Duke's retreating back: "Enjoy your wife."

Anne picked up a grape and popped it into her mouth, holding it between her teeth but not letting them break the skin. Propped open against her knees was Erasmus' new work on the value of priests; frowning, she made a mark in the margin indicating her disagreement with one of his points. How could Erasmus reconcile a statement that the duty of the priest was to bring peace to each individual member of a congregation with the hypothesis that the improvement of standards of human conduct on a personal level would be vital to reforming the church, and how did either of these points agree with the man's insistence that the church must be reformed from within? Clearly the tenets of his arguments were, within themselves, at odds. Chewing on her lip, she turned the page, rearranging her nightgown over her knees as she lifted the heavy volume in order to do so. Her mind was growing bored with this tedious book. Erasmus seemed to be arguing in circles, something for which Anne had very little patience. As she tilted her head from side to side and stretched the muscles, Anne promised herself that after two more pages she would stop reading and do something else with her day. So far she had awakened, had a characteristically lovely conversation with her father, and then spent over an hour on her knees, conferring with her maker. Now she had spent upwards of two hours curled up on her windowseat, inappropriately undressed, her dressing gown lying on the floor a few yards away, her hair tangled and tumbling down her back, reading the dronings of some conflicted Dutch humanist. A banquet awaited her in several hours, and she felt not the slightest touch of excitement for it. _What a glamourous life I lead_, she thought to herself.

She split the grape in half and sucked the meat out of the membrane, savouring every drop of the precious flavour. Indulgently, she reached for a slice of cheese from the gilded tray that was propped beside her. Nibbling it with her bandaged hand, Anne tried to ignore the linen wrapped around two of her fingers, tried to stay her preoccupation with it that had so irritated her father. If she looked at it at all, she thought of Jane Seymour, and then her husband, and then her marriage, and then… She had to stop it there. She knew that she was being sentimental and ridiculous, and furthermore, that she was immeasurably stupid and probably half mad – thank God her father knew not the half of the trouble, she had thought as he stared her in the face and demanded that she abandon this evening the loyalties to the country that had reared her and made her who she was today, and the country to which she gave credit for training her to be the queen of her own. "Abandon France," Anne murmured as she turned another page, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Surely, Father. No matter. Whatever you say, my lord."

If she was to be frank with herself, Anne would admit that she was barely even reading anymore. Her eyes flitted over each paragraph, each concept, each statement, dismissing Erasmus as though he was not the prince of humanism. As though she had not spent her intellectual adolescence using his works, several of which had been dedicated to her own father, as nourishment. It seemed that, after all these years, she was to abandon the country of her youth, the literature of her youth, the love of her youth, and accept that she was as witless as every damsel that she had ever pitied for being so loose with her morals and thoughts. She had wanted to hang herself this morning, because she had dreamt of black velvet last night. No frantic prayers, whether Latin or English – yes, she had tried both – had stopped it. Mayhap God would be more sympathetic to her morning spent folded over on the stone floor, her knees wretchedly uncomfortable and her toes freezing despite the late spring air, and spare her those dreams – nightmares, really – this evening. Suddenly, Anne's eye lighted on a passage that brought her true laughter, the type of reaction that she would have had five, ten years ago, when the other court ladies, both in England and in France, had poked fun at her for her thorough enjoyment of books other than poetry and chivalric knight's tales. The burst of laughter was unexpected and unheeded.

Lady Sheldon slid her head around the partially open door to Anne's bedchamber. "Your Majesty? We were unsure whether you were asleep."

Anne waved her in. "No, no, I was just reading. I've come across the funniest thing, Madge! Listen…" Madge took a tentative step into the room, fidgeting with her sleeve and then toying with a curl. Her smile looked ready but uneasy. She was not the brightest woman and did not do well with complex jokes, especially not the ones of which the clever queen was capable. "Erasmus is discussing the necessary aspects of being a priest, and the requirements of preaching the Bible in a more literal way to congregations, and he is trying to make the point that…" Anne's bandaged hand fumbled before her face, trying to grab the correct phrasing from the air in front of her. Madge looked lost already. "Well, I suppose that he is trying to say that priests should be doing thus-and-so, and at the moment, what he feels they are doing is certainly not thus-and-so. You see?" Madge did not see, clearly, but she nodded eagerly to humour her mistress. "So he writes," Anne picked up the book and scrunched her face to imitate the old theologian, affecting a deep Dutch accent, "If elephants can be trained to dance, lions to play and leopards to hunt, surely priests can be taught to preach!" She punctuated the insult with a delighted giggle, which Madge returned.

"That is very clever, Your Majesty," nodded Madge. "Very clever indeed."

Anne gazed at the young woman a moment. She wondered whether Madge found her beautiful, young, interesting, as she had once felt – or whether she felt the same reverence for her which Anne had once felt for Queen Claude and, yes, Queen Katherine. In short, Anne wondered whether she was seen as a young queen or an old queen. She wondered because she could not be sure herself. What was clear, though, was that Anne had chosen the wrong person with whom to share the Erasmus joke. That type of talk was better suited for Henry. Well, not _only_ Henry. But unfortunately, at the moment she had few options. Taking a deep breath, Anne dropped her legs to the floor and hauled herself out of her cushioned windowseat. "I think it is time for me to dress and do something with myself, do you not, Madge?"

Madge looked eager but did not want to insult her mistress. "I would be happy to assist Your Majesty to dress," she offered.

"I should," Anne mused, closing the book and gathering her hair in one hand. "But what shall we all do with ourselves today? I feel… restless… all of a sudden. I suppose we could work on our altar cloth for the Chapel Royal…"

"We could spend the day in preparation for the banquet," Madge suggested, ever eager to play dress-up and practice dancing. Try as she may, she consistently had a horrible go at dancing. Whether it was due to her girth, or whether she simply had no natural grace, exhibition-style dancing was always difficult for Madge. No wonder Sir Henry was uninterested in marrying her; it seemed that every time she felt his affection for her grow, there was a damned banquet and the poor man was probably appalled at his potential bride's lack of grace. How was she ever going to manage a wedding? Maybe if Her Majesty were so inclined, they could practice dance steps before the banquet.

Unfortunately, Anne looked uninterested. "I am not ready for that yet, it is hours away," Anne responded. "We must find something to do in the meantime." Suddenly, Anne was distracted by one of those beautiful moments that takes place on a glorious sunny day, where the shade of the world that one sees through one's windows brightens from amber to pure gold as the sun defeats a cloud and further illuminates the sky. Turning back to the window, Anne knelt on the cushion and pressed both palms to the window, suddenly feeling imprisoned within the palace. When she exhaled, a little fog appeared on the pane in front of her.

"Your Majesty?" Madge ventured. _Please, no more theology books. I cannot understand half the words that you say when you begin your explaining and critiquing of those things,_ Madge pleaded silently.

"I think," Anne said, eyes still on the outside world, "that I'd like to go outside. Would you like to go outside on such a beautiful day, Lady Sheldon?"

A bit surprised, Madge replied, "I would love to, yes, Your Majesty. Does Your Majesty wish me to ask a groom to ready the horses…?"

"No, no," Anne huffed, bouncing off the windowseat. "I just want to go outside. Let us lie in the sunshine and breathe in the fresh air and just…" she fluttered one hand. "Just _be_."

"I shall find some linen sheets, if Your Majesty wishes?"

"Yes, that will do. Send Nan in here, too, Lady Sheldon." Anne snatched a brush from her vanity table and began pulling it through her long tangled curls. Madge nodded and left the room, unable to help noticing that the queen referred to her as "Lady Sheldon" in the same sentence that she called Mistress Saville "Nan."

"You wanted to see me, my lady?"

"Yes, Nan," the queen responded, staring in the mirror at her own pale face. She looked thin, and almost frail. "I would like to go outside and spend the afternoon taking in the fresh air and sunshine. Lady Sheldon has gone to get linen sheets for us, and I need you to choose me a gown."

Always the eager gown-chooser, Nan twisted her nose to one side, trying to decide which trunk to search. "What sort of gown would Your Majesty like?"

"Let's leave the beautiful ones for the decisions about the banquet," Anne chuckled over her shoulder. "Something easy, something light, something… natural."

"I believe Your Majesty has a few linen gowns?" Nan suggested, opening one clothes chest. "How about white?"

"Mmm…" Anne sounded disapproving. "What else have you?"

"Why not the white?" pressed Nan. "It will be comfortable and will keep Your Majesty cool." As proof, Nan held up the dress in question. Simple white linen with a touch of embroidery about the big, loose half-sleeves and a low-cut neckline with a petal-like collar that would flutter in the breeze.

"I suppose. Nothing the matter with it. I shall be… Minerva? She is goddess of nature, is she not?" Anne shook out her newly brushed hair, mourning as she always did the loss of the ringlets that came with getting the snarls out.

Nan faltered. "I am not sure, my lady. My memory of mythology does not serve." She held out a thin set of underskirts and stockings, which Anne slid on quickly.

"I believe so. I believe she is the goddess of sunlight and nature and all things natural," Anne recalled as she tugged her nightgown over her head and left her arms up, allowing Nan to wrap a corset around her midsection. "You needn't pull too tight, Nan. I wish to be comfortable this afternoon."

Nan could never tell the queen that she had been lacing her corsets increasingly loosely for months as the queen lost weight from her thwarted pregnancy, and then some, and then a pinch more. "Yes, my lady. Tell me if I tug too tightly."

"Shall we bring some books out with us to the gardens?"

"If you wish, my lady," Nan mused as she tied the laces into flat bows and tucked them into the back of the garment. "Mayhap a volume of mythology, so that we could all refresh ourselves on the identities of the goddesses? What a lovely idea for a masque that would be…"

"Oh, Nan!" Anne cried. "What a perfect idea! We shall host a masque depicting the goddesses when we go to France in a few weeks. That is a wonderful idea."

Pleased to have pleased her mistress, Nan collected the white linen dress and loosened the drawstring at the waist, then pulled it straight down over the queen's head. "That will be wonderful, Your Majesty. I should love to help." Nan began to move back around to stand behind the queen and adjust her skirts and hair, but Anne grabbed both of her wrists suddenly. Startled, Nan looked up, wondering if she had offended.

"You," Anne breathed, "are a true friend. What I mean to say is that you are much more than a maid to me, Nan. You are… sometimes I think… there are moments where I think you are the only true friend that I have left. I want to tell you how much I appreciate that. And as a thank you, I want you to take the leading role in the masque in France."

"Your Majesty," Nan whispered, and on instinct dropped to her knees on the floor. Luckily, they were standing on a thick rug. "Thank you," she breathed, head bowed, her queen still holding one of her hands.

"Oh, come now, Nan," Anne said with a smirk, pulling her up, "how am I to finish dressing with you on your knees like that? God knows I can barely fix my own hair, let alone leave my apartments, without you. I thank you as one friend to another. There is no need to be so grateful. It is right that I should."

Nan scuttled to Anne's back and pulled on the ends of the wide, flat linen sash that she found there, tying it in a luxurious bow. "Thank you, Your Majesty," she repeated, her quiet voice barely reaching Anne's ear. "You are ready for your excursion."

"Ah, lovely." Anne turned to face the mirror and smoothed her sleeves. "Shall we?" Without waiting for an answer, the queen swept out of her bedchamber and waved her hand at her ladies. "Ladies! To the gardens!" They fell into step behind her, giggling and offering to help one another carry a sheet, or a fan. Madge Shelton, her sister Mary, Nan Saville, Bess Dormer, Elizabeth Seymour, and one blonde ghost comprised Anne's intimates of the bedchamber, a gaggle of white-and-ivory ladies all ringlets and perfume, in essence the cream of the crop when it came to ladies in England. Elizabeth Seymour, a twenty-four-year-old widow, was nothing like her sister. Anne never bothered asking her where Lady Jane was when she went missing, not only because she already knew where the woman was, but also because it was entirely likely that Elizabeth did not know where Jane was. They did not bed together; they seldom spoke beyond formalities in public; they were clearly not close. Thank God; otherwise, Anne would have difficulty looking at the younger Seymour sister just as she now did the elder.

As Anne flounced down the front stairs of the palace, her ladies in step behind her, they encountered a smiling Duke of Suffolk.

She waited for his smile to founder when he saw her, but to her amazement it did not. Suffolk had already seen her, probably before she had seen him, and he seemed genuinely happy. Meeting her at the base of the stairs, Suffolk reached for her hand and dropped to one knee, paying her obeisance as though it was the first time he had met his queen. When Anne extended her left hand, Suffolk kissed her wedding ring and smiled up at her. She noticed that when his eyes slid up to meet her, just for a moment, he looked like a lion about to devour its prey. Shaking that off, Anne made the most of his good will. "Good afternoon, Your Grace."

"Your Majesty. You look well." _I do,_ she thought. _I do look well. Like Minerva . I _feel_ well._

"Thank you, Your Grace. As do you. Have you returned from your country seat? Is the Duchess with you?" Anne looked around inquisitively. She saw no sign of a litter or the Duke's pretty wife who was over a decade younger and fresher than she.

"No, my lady. We had arrived a short while ago, and my wife went ahead to our apartments to unpack her things. I took a quick stroll along the river and was just going up to meet her," Suffolk explained affably.

"I see. Well, I trust I shall see you this evening. I am sure your wife will be as lovely as ever. My ladies and I are making a trip to the gardens for leisure, should she be inclined toward relaxation this afternoon. Do have a lovely day, Your Grace." Anne smiled back at him, feeling a sudden burst of lightheartedness as she felt his friendly manner wash over her.

"And you, Your Majesty." Suffolk bowed and flashed her a grin, then made an exaggerated bow to her entourage. "Ladies," he winked. "I trust to see you all driving the men wild in the banqueting hall this evening. Good day," and he jogged up the stairs and into the foyer. His smile did not fade once he was out of her sight; instead, it grew. "I shall see you this evening, my queen," Suffolk muttered under his breath, "and, I trust, for not many more afterward."

Back on the front steps of the palace, Anne had turned to watch Suffolk go and now she turned to face forward again, a surprised, happy ghost of a smile on her lips. "That was pleasant," she whispered to herself. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, then turned her head to see her ladies, waiting behind her, one or two of them murmuring something about the Duke's chin, and his eyes, and his hair. "Isn't it a beautiful day, ladies?" Without waiting for them to respond, she took off again, toward the garden, at a quick pace. "I can't remember when I've seen such a beautiful day."

At a flat spot in the middle of the gardens, between a cluster of fountains and flower beds and leafy trees, Anne chose a space with thick emerald grass, and her ladies laid down linen sheets. Anne barely waited for them to smooth down the top layer of fabric before she flung herself down on her back, feet almost reaching the edge of the linen, head toward the middle. "Come, ladies," she murmured, her eyes closed, her head lolling to one side. "It is ever so peaceful down here."

Carefully, Madge, Nan, Bess, Elizabeth, and Mary picked their way onto the sheets and laid beside their queen, their heads nearly touching in the middle, their feet all pointing different directions; a veritable geometric shape of lightly dressed noble ladies. Kicking off their shoes to lounge in just their stockings, the ladies and their queen soon fell to gossiping and speculation. Who was overly fond of whom? Who was said to be ready to marry whom? Who was spending an utter fortune of their husband's money on new shoes from France and the Vatican? What gentleman was the best jouster, who was the favourite to win the tournament on May Day? What did everyone think of the new trends in cosmetics that had recently filtered in from the East: stain for a lady's fingernails, a rod that a lady might warm in a fire and use to set curls, and even false hair pieces that one used to build one's hair upward, which one could not wash or comb or even, when it got to be of a certain size, lie down with, since it was so heavy and cumbersome? Nan wrinkled her nose at this last one, and in overdramatic fashion, begged her queen to vow never to start such a trend in England. Anne made disapproving 'tsks' with her tongue and twisted around, flopping onto her stomach to face her ladies, vowing that she would never dream of such a thing. To build one's hair straight up instead of preferring to let it fall down. What nonsense! She had brought French sleeves to England, she proclaimed, and that was the crowning achievement of her career in fashion…

It was when Anne arched her back up, supporting her weight in front of her on her elbows, and turned to face Nan that she saw it. First out of the corner of her eye, but undeniable; then, unable to stop herself, she turned her head and meant to glance only, but could not move her eyes for a few moments. Was it there? Behind that row of tall hedges – could she just barely see it between the leaves? Yes, of course it was there. A glimmer of gold against black. When she froze and stared at it, Anne could have sworn that it stopped moving too, and for a split second she imagined a pair of green eyes watching her, having been taken aback by the sight of her too. Then she broke the spell herself, rolling back over and staring up at the sky, forcing herself to only see the blue. The black may have stayed there all afternoon, watching and listening; or it may have remained only a moment more, to be sure that she was not going to look back; or it may have never been there at all. Anne frankly did not care, and she neither wanted to wonder about nor pursue it.

The conversation turned to the banquet. What color should each lady wear? There were bound to be plenty of eligible young lords. This, after all, was the first major banquet of the summer season; the precedent of May Day. Each lady must look her best. Was it more fashionable to wear one's hair loose, or pull it up and wear bedazzling earrings? Was it worth the pain to wear exceptionally high heels? What of lip stain – did men like it? The conversation buzzed around her, and although Anne occasionally interjected, she felt so at peace that for the first time in two days, her body relaxed. Somewhere during the debate of the merits of a square neckline versus an oblique one, the queen of England gave in and let herself fall asleep under the warm sun in the royal gardens.

Anne opened her bedroom door to find an array of jewels before her, in the forms of her ladies. Each one was dressed to the hilt, in silk or satin of a shade passing vibrant. At once, they curtsied. "Your Majesty," rose a chorus of sweet voices. She surveyed them with a smile, still wearing her white linen gown. After they had come inside, she had dismissed them to ready themselves in their own chambers. They had been reasonably fast, which was good, as she felt that her ensemble would take some time to piece together.

"You all look lovely," the queen said, and her ladies rose eagerly. "Now," she opened the door wider, "is it my turn?"

The girls bustled in, murmuring affirmation. Anne gnawed on a fingernail. "I've not decided which gown I want..."

"Something bright!" insisted Madge. "Your Majesty." She bobbed for good measure.

"I agree with you," responded the queen, bemused. "Just look at my ladies. What would a woman dressed in a pale shade look like next to all of you?"

Bess Dormer, normally relatively shy, ventured, "Perhaps Your Majesty could wear that gown that you had made last fall for the Christmas season, but could not wear because..." she trailed off. _Because at that time you were swollen with the child that you have now lost._

"The red and gold?" asked Nan, to which Bess nodded. Leave it to Nan to know the queen's wardrobe inside and out. "That was a lovely damask gown, Your Majesty," Nan commented. "Do you remember it?"

Anne bit down on her fingertip, arms folded. "Not precisely, to be truthful with you... Could someone find it?"

Bess's instincts proved correct: the gown was perfect. At first sight, Anne remembered it, and approved. She had gone through a phase of loving red last fall, and had ordered several red and red-accented garments – one of which she had been wearing when she and Henry danced their volte. Perhaps this one would bring her similar luck.

Madge unearthed a pair of red silk stockings from a chest. "Would these work, Your Majesty?"

"They are perfect. Do I have any shoes this shade of gold?"

"Your Majesty must somewhere, I refuse to believe that you do not," Nan muttered, annoyed that she had not been able to dig out a pair of matching shoes from one of Anne's small closets off of her main bedchamber. Bess and Elizabeth had gone to find a few options for jewels, and the Shelton sisters went to work tidying the room from the day's activities, having selected the stockings that the queen would wear that evening.

Elizabeth Seymour's voice floated into the room before she did: "I disagree. I think the queen's gown would be more complimented by a ruby necklace and a gold headpiece. Just plain gold against a gown with gold in it will blend in!"

"But surely…" Bess Dormer curtsied in motion to Anne as they crossed the threshold, her ruby satin gown jostling in the doorway about her. "Madam, Lady Elizabeth and I cannot seem to agree on the best color combination for that gown. I prefer the gold necklace…"

"Which is silly," Elizabeth cut in, "considering so much of the gown is gold. It will not stand out. I prefer this necklace, Your Majesty." Elizabeth gestured to the second necklace in the open jewel box that Bess carried.

"And there was some talk of a headpiece, was there not?" Anne asked, glancing at Nan as she rejected another pair of gold-tone shoes.

"We've agreed on this one," Bess insisted to Elizabeth. "Have we not, Elizabeth?"

"I suppose so," Elizabeth murmured, rolling her eyes. "Then let me have the necklace."

"Fair," Bess remarked. "Fair enough. Your Majesty, I've found that I do favour this necklace after all."

"I'm glad that's been settled, ladies," Anne chuckled. "Nan, how goes the-"

Nan jumped to her feet before Anne could finish, spinning around with two high heels worked in deep marigold satin in hand. "Success!" she crowed, forgetting herself. "Your Majesty."

"I see that. Well," Anne picked at the neckline of her linen gown, "Shall we begin?"

Before the queen knew it, she had been pressed into her vanity table chair and was leaning against its back, a goblet of sweet early-summer wine in her hand, her ladies buzzing around her like well-meaning bees. Two hands guided first one foot, and then the other, into the red silk stockings that had been selected for her, cinching the garter ribbons just above her knees, where these fashionable new stockings ended on her lower thighs. Anne closed her eyes as she felt one hand remove the goblet from her grasp and tilt her head backward, where another pair of hands waited with a pillow to support Anne's head. A fine cotton cloth, damp with rosewater perfume, was pressed gently to Anne's neck, from jugular to collarbone, and a little of the scent dusted on her shoulders for good measure. Two fingers, meanwhile, made their way to Anne's face, rubbing a little honey-butter lotion onto her skin to brighten it after spending the day in the sun. When the queen sat straight up again and looked in the mirror, she saw Nan readying the comb and setting the jar of pins up on the vanity table, while Madge and Mary Shelton polished the necklace and headdress that Mistresses Dormer and Seymour had so quarreled over. Those two ladies, meanwhile, shook out the intended gown, fixed its slightly wrinkled pleats, and decided that there was, in fact, a pair of earrings somewhere that went with the ruby necklace. As Elizabeth went off to find it, Bess came to stand beside Nan. "Do you need any help?" she asked quietly.

"No," Nan responded, her face screwed up in concentration, "well, yes, actually… could you just hold this in place? There. Yes, hold it up, and don't let it move while I wrap it here… yes, right there, hold it." Bess silently obeyed while Nan twisted pins and hair around each other, creating another of her masterpieces.

"Remember the headdress, Nan," Mary Shelton called over her shoulder. "Do not put Her Majesty's hair up too high."

"I shan't," Nan muttered, biting her lip at Anne's mane of hair. She grabbed a hank of it and attacked it with the comb again, trying to twist it into one sleek rope. It did not quite cooperate, but it was good enough for her to finish pinning it into place. She then kept adding pins for heightened security: the queen's hair had never fallen out of its styling in public, and Nan was determined to keep it so.

"Your Majesty?" asked Madge, stepping aside to let Elizabeth Seymour rub the located pair of earrings to a shining perfection. "Would you like any rouge for your cheeks?"

"D'you think I need it?" Anne asked, studying herself in the mirror. "My cheeks seem to have soaked up some colour from the sun this afternoon…"

"You are radiant, Majesty," Bess Dormer offered. "You do not need any cosmetics. Although maybe you would like some red stain for your lips, to match the colour in the gown?"

"That might be nice. Would you find that, please, Madge?"

Within a quarter hour, the queen's hair was pinned to immaculate perfection, her rosewater scent rising from her skin, and her lips reddened to a most alluring shade. The sun had indeed brightened her complexion, and the face that stared back at Anne in the mirror above her vanity was altogether different from the one that had faced her two mornings ago, when she had yet to learn about Cromwell betraying her, when she had yet to storm off to his office to have it out with him, when they had yet to… and was it not strange that she could look better after such a thing? She took a deep breath, watching her collarbone rise against her thin shoulders and neck, and pursed her lips, telling herself that it did not matter. What was done was done, and she would cease to think about it, starting right now.

"Is the gown ready, ladies?" Anne asked over her shoulder without taking her eyes from their reflection. She was suddenly aware that a hush had fallen over the room.

"Yes, Your Majesty," a voice assured her, but she was not sure which lady answered.

Anne rose like a goddess from a bed of flowers – _like_ _Minerva_, she thought – and turned to see her ladies awaiting her with the gown which, she now remembered, had a corset built into the stomacher, which laced downward and the laces of which then tucked into a tiny slit in the top of the skirts. Which then tied closed with a ribbon that matched the gown. What would they think of next? "Very well." She shrugged out of her gown, stepped out of it, and removed her underskirts and corset. Clad only in red stockings in front of her ladies, Anne felt suddenly more naked than she had ever felt, and this was certainly not the first time she had borne her flesh before their eyes. She forced herself not to cover her breasts, telling herself mentally that she was being ridiculous, that these ladies had seen her form before and that it was nothing to them to see it now, that there was no reason for her to suddenly feel so undressed, so vulnerable. It could have nothing to do with her feeling vulnerable in general, she told herself. Instead, she gestured to her ladies, who hurriedly opened the gown for her and helped her step into its unlaced midsection, slide the narrow waistband effortlessly over her slim hips, and guide her arms into the sleeves before the fabric covered her shoulders. "Are you all anticipating the banquet?" Anne asked absentmindedly as she felt two of the ladies straightening the eyelet-panels on the back of the dress while a third began to lace them together with the gold ribbon that would close the dress.

"I certainly am," Mary Shelton responded, heading across the room to pick up the jewelbox that once again held the queen's necklace.

"Why is that, Mistress Shelton? Have you a fancy for some young man?" Anne asked coquettishly.

"I have a fancy for all young men, to be truthful, Your Majesty," Mary responded, her tone and the dip of her head while she spoke entirely blasé. "I never act on my fancies, but that does not mean that I cannot have them."

"You let men kiss you," Madge tattled accusingly, having come over to join Mary. She picked up the headpiece on its pillow, then laid the earrings inside its round perimeter.

Anne tsk-tsked. "Mary, Mary, you should marry… are you not a little young to be traipsing about the court making a name for yourself?" Mary, at age nineteen, was the youngest of Anne's bedchamber intimates.

"I exhibit great virtue, I swear it, my lady," Mary rushed to assure Anne, glaring at Madge. "Do not be jealous, sister, just because I have admirers and Sir Henry will not even propose to you."

Madge blanched at that. "He is just shy."

"That is not true, and you know it. He simply does not – he prefers…" Mary trailed off. "He does not want to marry you," she said instead.

"Mary," Anne admonished, straightening up as the laces were tugged into their final resting places. "Do not antagonize your sister. Sisters must be able to take care of and defend one another."

This brought on another tense silence as all the ladies wondered, _And what of Your Majesty and your sister?_

"But," commented Elizabeth Seymour near Anne's left ear, in a voice just above a whisper, and a humiliated-sounding whisper at that, "it is not always possible to defend the actions of one's sister… Your Majesty."

The comment was perfect, at once comforting Anne against the feeling of guilt that she carried for banishing her only sister from court for political reasons and half-apologizing for the actions of Elizabeth's own sister. "Thank you, my dear," Anne hummed back.

"Anyway," blustered Mary, poking at the necklace to get it to lie perfectly on the velvet lining of the box, "I do fancy men, Your Majesty, and thus I do look with great anticipation to banquets. I love to dance," she added, shooting a sideways glance at her sister, who did not. The Shelton sisters shared a gaze, that sisterly, competitive gaze, loving and challenging and insulting all at once. Mary in her light turquoise damask gown with no sleeves and her hair pulled back was much lovelier than curvier, ringlet-surrounded Madge in her straight-sleeved, dark sapphire gown. "And I love to look beautiful. Is not the point of a banquet to look beautiful?"

"It is," Anne smiled. "And I must say, you all look exceedingly beautiful." A murmur of thank-yous rose to answer her. Nan stepped back from her, and the Sheltons came forward, bearing her jewels. Bess and Elizabeth laid the necklace across her shoulders and straightened it downward over her collarbone and bodice, while Nan fitted the headdress to the top of Anne's head. Finally, Anne stepped into her golden shoes, her earrings were fastened, and her appearance of queenship was complete. "How do I look?"

"See for yourself, Your Majesty," smiled Nan, gesturing at the full-length mirror behind Anne. The queen turned around and regarded her reflection, a vision of regality, before her. It was perfect. She was every inch a queen. She felt excitement rising within her, bubbling up from her stomach to her chest to her face, which lit up before her eyes in the mirror and broke into a real smile.

"Suddenly, I am in the mood to dance," Anne remarked, swiveling her head backward to address her ladies over one shoulder.

Mary Shelton grinned back at her. "Being beautiful makes one want to dance," she agreed. "I certainly want to dance." She made her way back across the room, trotting a little as though skipping through a galliard as she did so. "What say you, sister? Do you want to dance as well?" she turned her eyes sincerely on Madge.

The excitement was contagious. "I do," Madge responded, as though giving into her true feelings. "Sir Henry stands not a chance tonight!"

This met with a chorus of surprised "oohs," and assorted giggles and comments. "What of you, Bess?" Anne asked, turning on her quietest lady, who was dressed tonight in a most uncharacteristic ruby red gown that fought with her dark copper locks, which were tumbling over her back and shoulders. "Do you have a fancy for this evening?"

Bess actually blushed. "I… there is one that I do fancy, yes, madam."

"Who is he?" Anne prompted as though they were teenagers.

"Oh," Bess's cheeks reddened another shade or two, "Oh, I cannot say. I am sorry. He does not know of my feelings for him… I could never tell him. It is just a passing fancy."

"One should never say that!" Mary admonished her, with more wisdom than most nineteen-year-olds can dream of, from across the room, where she was using a hand mirror to smooth her hair under her decorative coronet. "He may be your one true love!"

"Well, I do not know-" Bess began.

"We will be able to tell the identity of your sweetheart," the queen predicted, "for we shall see it in your face when you see him this evening. Ladies, let's all be on the lookout to determine the identity of Bess's sweetheart. That shall be our goal." Anne's foot was tapping on the floor, two taps front, two back, one front, one back, and then it swung, tapping at the height of each swing. "And in the meantime, we shall dance!" Her body sometimes chose to dance without asking her permission; it was its default, its absent-minded activity, to want to move with rhythm, to make her steps graceful even when she was not thinking about them. "We shall all dance the night away," Anne predicted, letting one sleeve swing out beside her as she waved her arm.

Ever faithful, Nan joined in, bouncing up and down as she switched her weight from one foot to the other. An unrestrained curl bobbed defiantly from her coif and threatened to reach down to her shoulder to meet her lovely green gown, a gift from the queen last Christmastide. All of Anne's ladies had received sumptuous dresses as their gifts, and Nan had just christened hers this evening. Such a stark shade of green was a bit out of Nan's realm of comfort, but she had to admit when she put it on that the queen had known what she was doing when she selected the fabric and, unerringly, ordered the cut, to Nan's exact specifications, without Nan ever knowing. How the queen managed to do this for all her ladies was beyond Nan's comprehension, but when Nan had tried the gown on experimentally for the first time (yes, there had been more than one experimental try-on before Nan plucked up the courage to wear the gown out of her bedchamber), she was amazed by how perfectly styled it was. The deep shade of emerald green, not too harsh or too bright, brought out Nan's ordinarily mousy hair colour and plain brown eyes and actually made her appear lovely and elegant, rather than the plain young lady she often thought herself to be. The simple, seamed straight sleeves that ended in fanciful bells at Nan's elbows coupled with the accent on the tiny waist and the billowing full appearance brought on by the accompanying underskirts, likewise, made Nan appear more a lady than she had ever felt in any other garment. Maybe it was Anne's intention to marry her off; for certain, Nan felt more able to attract a man this evening than she ever had before, and that was with her hair still pinned in a rather unimaginative coif. She did not have quite enough courage to debut a head full of cascading ringlets as well as the gown. One step at a time, she had told herself. She might become an alluring maiden yet. "I feel like dancing, too," Nan laughed, pulling up her skirts a little to allow her feet free movement. "I hope the young lords have rested and had their suppers already; the queen's ladies are prepared to dance until dawn, I daresay!"

Elizabeth Seymour adjusted the strap on her shoe and smiled up at the queen. "Your Majesty will lead us?" she asked sincerely. There was no question of it: Anne Boleyn was still the best dancer at court. "Without you, we will look like a bunch of hens trying to have a dance in a barnyard."

"Ah, but next to the queen, we will all look as graceful as cows!" Mary Shelton shot back.

"I will dance a fair amount," Anne responded, checking to make sure her headdress had not moved. It had not. "I am not sure what type of music, if any, has been practiced in specific. We will have to-"

A knock came on the queen's outer door, and Madge bustled out to answer it, while the queen and her ladies caught their breaths from dancing in place. "Your Majesty!" Madge called, gliding back to Anne's bedchamber threshold. "The herald has come! He calls us to the Great Hall."

"Well, it is time, my ladies," Anne smiled at their young faces, which were bursting with excitement. "Shall we?"

**UP NEXT: **Seymours, Wyatt, Henry, and dancing!

At once, Tom rounded on Elizabeth. "Why in the blood of Christ did you do that?"

"I knew not what else to do! She was staring straight at us! Why did no one else do anything?"

Edward raked a hand through his hair and took a ragged breath inward. "She is dangerous."

Slightly taken aback, Elizabeth bit her lip. "Why? What do you mean?"

He rolled his eyes again and hustled his siblings behind the pillar. "She could still win. They – the Boleyns – could still win."

Jane tensed, a genuine look of fear in her eyes. "How? The king loves me."

"She is… there is something about her. She has an effect on him, on men. This is not the first time he has tired of her, but she has the power to pull him back in. She is…" Edward craned his neck backward, trying to steal another glance at Anne around the pillar. "There is just something about her."


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **Hello, hello! I had sworn to myself that I would not publish my next chapter until I turned in two chapters of my thesis, which I have, HOORAY! So, without further ado (other than the obligatory review responses)… (PS: I promised you dancing and Anne/Cromwell interaction but this chapter was too long already, so that'll be the whole next chapter – much shorter, but delicious, if I do say so myself. And it shall be soon, I daresay.) …

Pandora, I hope you like my Seymour section! We will be getting to know Elizabeth and Jane a little bit in this story, but the brothers won't be too intimately involved – for purposes of not making this story the longest thing ever, which it's already shaping up to be (to put it in perspective, the first prospectus had the entire thing finished in fourteen chapters; we're at eleven already and barely past the first two days! Whoops.). I also loved the Cromwell/Brandon angle. Brandon is a fun character – I'd love to involve Norfolk but since Cavill's Suffolk (smokin', by the way) is more an amalgamation of the two dukes, it would get too complex. Plus then we've got the delightful Katherine d'Eresby to contend with, and she is a delightful woman, to be sure.

Nat! Never fear, I swear I shall see this story through to the very end. I'm too in love with it to do otherwise. I appreciate the compliment more than I can say – I think when someone is so passionate about an idea and they run with it, beautiful things happen! I hope you enjoy this chapter too. And as for your misgiving, I have to apologize but for this story that is the ending that works. I hope by the end that you'll understand and be on board with the conclusion =)

Anna, my Anna! I've enjoyed our correspondence so. I am SO pleased with my choice to include Lizzie too, she'll play an extremely interesting role in the remainder of the story. I'm so glad you enjoyed my selection and portrayal of the scenes and would love suggestions on further scenes (THIS GOES FOR EVERYONE! If there's something you'd like to see, suggest it!) Please publish your story soon, I simply cannot wait. I'll translate it!

BoldLikeBlack – I'm so flattered that everyone was afraid I wasn't coming back! That's terribly encouraging. Don't worry, I shall never leave. This story's going all the way. Anne will have a number more setbacks, naturally – and there will be a ton more Cromwell as I get more used to writing his character – it's surprisingly difficult to make him come off as a combination of the Cromwell we saw in the series, and the man I perceive him to have been historically, and the rounded and flawed and funny human being that I think he must be. Your hope for their feelings is certainly not invalid – and may be the twinkle in this story's eye.

MPS! Oh my goodness. Please post your story! PLEASE! I would love to read ittttt!

StarsInTheRain, WELCOME! Thank you for that amazing review. There is a surprisingly high number of people, I guess, who do like the idea of Anne/Cromwell. I appreciate your compliment on my grammar, I do try to write with stylistic cleanliness – although I often play fast-and-loose with incomplete sentences and so forth when I am feeling dramatic. But usually it is in an attempt to portray a certain mood to my reader. There will certainly be more emerging undercurrents, as I am trying to write this story in the style of a novel (historical fiction style, of course) to try my hand at real creative writing. I'm loving it so far! I think you're the first person I've encountered who doesn't like Anne and Henry together – most feel they were the type of fighting soul mates that you read about in movies (or, in this case, history books). I think there was too much temper and ego in the relationship for it to have had any real chance at lasting. Anne does have a ridiculous amount of charisma, and that is historically extremely accurate – I am playing off the sense that you get when you read the real Letters & Papers, any time that Anne is mentioned or described you almost feel like the writer is drawn to her regardless of their opinion of her. Love her or hate her, she was always on someone's mind. A minor underlying theme in this story is going to be how drawn to her everyone is, for one reason or another. It's like they're all a little in love with her. Except (or including? We just don't know!) her husband. Ha! As for my opinion of Anne, I think she was fantastic and operated within the boundaries of her time to an unbelievably efficient degree. I have to disagree with an opinion of her as not poised or elegant; I think she had both of those down. I think it was more the requirement of keeping her mouth shut that gave her trouble. Historically Anne was quite a solid person, certainly not perfect; too much of a flirt, pretty vain, and so forth, but if she was arrogant she had every reason to be, if you ask me, and anyone in her position would have been. I agree that she would have had vastly different relationships with people had the circumstances been different; Cromwell, for example, is so like her that they could have been great allies and better friends. That in part is the point of this story: their similarities have them tripping over their consciousness of them, and of each other, and that one moment of lapse in judgment, as well as the lingering consciousness of that on top of everything else, is going to follow both of them to their respective ends. Neither of them are bad people; it is their circumstances that have left them thus. There will certainly be lots more outbursts and so forth. I love Daniel too! He'll be popping up here and there throughout the story, and although Mrs. Lockton will play no major part, she'll make a few cameos too. I like the relief of having characters, and scenes, who are not so intrinsically part of the story that they give the reader a bit of a deep breath before the plot trips on ahead of them. Anne's ladies are interesting, and although some will play more importantly in her downfall, their 'girl-time' is something that I enjoy writing in general. And onto Cromwell… I thank you for the compliment on how I write him. =) I have a bit of a fixation with the historical Cromwell, but Frain's Cromwell is extraordinarily enjoyable to write. As for Brandon's outburst – I certainly agree that it was a stupid thing to say, but my point in portraying Brandon is that for all his intriguing he is still a bit of a rake. As he admitted to himself in the passage, he is not the brightest candle in the chandelier, and his passionate hatred of Anne (this will tie in in an extremely minute way with the aforementioned theme of attraction to Anne) overtakes his sense of reason when he is presented with a potential opportunity to be rid of her. When it comes to Cromwell's guilt over Anne's downfall… that will all be laid out later, but I think you will find it quite along the lines of what you're theorizing it would/should have been. I'm glad you liked the 1533 flashback, it seems to have been a popular scene! (I also think it's great how much Frain and Dormer have the chemistry and the dark curly hair that makes them look so good together on screen – it plays right into my manipulative hands!) Yes, we certainly will see Cromwell wavering between forced solidarity and the brink of madness, not hysterical guilt, but Anne-reminiscent paranoia and being plagued with thoughts of her, just as we have seen how disturbed she is over the state of affairs. The rosewater definitely was the first hint of that. He hates himself for being drawn to her, but at the same time it is such a sinfully pleasurable sentiment that he has, as we have seen, let himself indulge in it already. As I mentioned the whole 'loving Anne' theme, Cromwell is, it goes without saying, the chief example of this throughout the story. Other reviewers have asked and I have answered, so I won't keep it from you: Anne will still die at the end. The story's basic ending will occur with her death, although there will be an epilogue involving Cromwell's subsequent four years in office. As much as I'd love to see them run away together and as much fun as I can see a marriage between them being (and, SPOILER ALERT, although one or both of them may entertain similar fantasies before all is said and done), it's just too painfully unrealistic and the whole point of my historical fiction (I say that like I've written more than this one story, haha!) is that I want to keep it as realistic as I can in as many veins as I can. If that makes sense. Never apologize for a long review! I was so flattered and so glad you liked the story. I hope you're on board with the rest of the twists and turns, and I hope to keep hearing your thoughts!

HERE WE GO!

21 April 1536 – Evening

i.

Standing between two poles, two axes, what was a woman to do?

That was the question that confronted Elizabeth Seymour as she entered the Great Hall that evening, amongst the queen's ladies, all abuzz with the excitement of the banquet. Elizabeth trailed along behind the other ladies, for she could see, across the open hall, a gleaming head of blonde ringlets that could only be her older sister Jane. For a few moments, Elizabeth suffered in this agony privately, wondering to whom her feet must of necessity carry her – but then her father saw her, and with one finger beckoned her toward the cluster of Seymours, slightly shaded by a large pillar. Elizabeth's feet tried to follow the queen, genuinely not wanting to cause any trouble, and for a short distance longer she was able to walk in a neutral direction, not choosing to whom she must demonstrate her loyalty just yet. She watched her regal mistress greet several courtiers on her way across the open floor, men and women bowing their heads and doffing their caps as she passed. Quietly, she noted in one corner of her mind that sweet, pious Jane made no effort to so much as nod deferentially in the direction of her queen, and Elizabeth's father, Sir John, kept his ostrich-plumed cap unequivocally on his head. This was perhaps excusable since the Seymours had distanced themselves so much from the queen's party. On the other hand, it was really not.

Anne looked beautiful, her hair shining in smooth interwoven ribbons twisted around on the back of her head, her gold-and-red dress bringing out what little colour the sun had given her today. Her hands folded demurely, gracefully, in front of her, showing off her trademark billowing sleeves, no outsider would have thought there was any question of who was queen of this realm. She was a vision. Elizabeth sneaked a glance at Jane's face as her own eyes flitted back and forth, trying to calculate how much farther she could walk before abandoning her queen and making a silent public choice to join her family rather than remain with her mistress. Jane's pastel gown did little for her, but then, Jane was just coming into her own regarding fashion. Against the pallet of the rest of Her Majesty's ladies, Jane's tentative, non-jewel-toned gown would look superficial and childish. But then, there was little chance that Jane would spend much time with Her Majesty's ladies – and was she, truly, even one of Her Majesty's ladies?

Finally, the moment had come. Elizabeth must go to her family. She knew where her loyalties should lie, and, truth be told, they did; she loved her sister, wanted the best for her sister, wanted to see her brothers and father ennobled, wanted, naturally, selfishly, a good marriage with a rich, handsome peer that loved her madly. Of course, none of these things would necessarily follow a royal match for her sister. And her sister's royal suitor, in fact, had a wife. And Anne had done nothing wrong. And it was not right. But even still, Elizabeth gulped and scuttled around the Mistresses Shelton, past Nan, and Bess, and caught up with her mistress as they rounded a corner and the royal dais came into sight. "Your Majesty?" Elizabeth murmured, her dress whispering along in her wake, as she tried to tread lightly in that of the queen, "My father beckons me to his presence. May I?"

She saw the queen's shoulders stiffen at the effrontery that was the elder Seymour sister's refusal to attend upon the queen of England. But Anne answered evenly: "Of course, Elizabeth. You do not need my permission to go to your father. And sister."

Elizabeth's cheeks burned, and although no one was paying her any attention, she suddenly felt naked in front of the room full of courtiers with their judging eyes – although, truth be told, most of them would probably prefer to be rid of Anne anyway. "I know, madam, but I just…"

Anne stopped walking, her entourage slowing behind her, and faced Elizabeth, smiling her serene smile. "I know, Elizabeth. I know. Go."

The younger Seymour needed no further prompting. Waiting for the other ladies to pass, she made her way, alone, across the open space of the Great Hall toward her stern-faced father and sweet-smiling sister, flanked on each side by one Seymour boy. Thomas Seymour, Elizabeth's younger brother, characteristically piped up first: "What kept you so long, sister?"

"I was just informing Her Majesty where I was going," Elizabeth whispered back scoldingly, trying to maneuver around Jane and hide herself from further questioning. She watched the queen lower herself gracefully onto her throne, no husband beside her, as the banquet began to gather momentum before her.

"It looked as though you were asking her authorization," accused Edward. "Would she dare refuse you permission from being with your own family?"

"Of course not." Her tone was flat. Whatever loyalties she must of course keep toward her family, and they were heartfelt, Elizabeth would never engage in slandering of Queen Anne; there was no need for lying. Henry had finished with her, and he was on to Jane. There was no way around it, so why, she wondered, did the situation require such manipulation?

"And why are you dressed like one of the queen's group?" whispered Sir John, twitching his shoulder in front of Edward's to reestablish himself as alpha male and head of the Seymour family. Edward merely rolled his eyes and looked away, waiting for his turn. Since it had been discovered, a few years before, that Sir John had been making a habit of Edward's wife and had in fact sired the two children that Edward had thought were his own, the father-son relationship was predictably strained. It seemed to Elizabeth, and Edward would probably not deny, that the eldest Seymour boy was simply waiting for his father to die so that he could be in name what he already was in fact: the efficient, shrewd head of the family. Sir John had been, for several years, rather ineffectual in politics, and were it not for Henry accidentally falling in love with Jane at Wolf Hall last year, the family would probably still be lounging about their country seat, picking wildflowers and churning butter. All except Edward. Edward could always be trusted to be at the center of whatever he could.

"I _am_ one of the queen's group," Elizabeth hissed up at her father, plainly sated with his company already. She had to stop her hands from twisting bunches of her amber silk gown, one that she had had made while she was married to her late husband, into her fists, from crushing the fine fabric between her fingers, although whether she would do that to hide the rich colour that so plainly agreed with the gowns of Anne's other ladies, or to vent her frustrations at her hypocritical father, scolding her about loyalty when he had taken his heir's wife to bed countless times, she could not be sure. "Do not scold me like a child. I am one of Her Majesty's ladies. We dressed together. Accordingly, I dressed as one of the group. Would you honestly expect me to do otherwise? I am in the service of the queen."

"Well," Tom pointed out fairly, gesturing at Jane's powder-blue embroidered gown, "so is Janey."

A long moment passed as each of the Seymours exchanged glances. _Is she really?_ asked Elizabeth's eyes. _Am I really?_ chimed in Jane's raised eyebrows. _Not for long_, Edward's sideways smirk, half hidden by his wine goblet, affirmed. With a simple shrug of his shoulders, Tom glanced away, ceding defeat. _Point taken._

The silence needed to be broken. "True," Elizabeth replied, no emotion in her tone. "True, brother." She looked at Jane, not wanting her sister to be angry with her. "You look lovely, Janey," she whispered, her lips closer to Jane's blonde hair than Elizabeth could remember being to her sister in weeks. She meant it as a peace offering, as a way of trying to show Jane that she loved her and wanted the best for her, but without completely turning traitor. She wanted to be fair and honest. She wanted them to be sisters. Unfortunately, Edward overheard and characteristically interjected.

"But so does she."

As though someone had shouted, "Seymours!" across the hall, the four of them turned their heads at once and looked at the queen, sitting up straight on her throne. The four Seymour children, their father behind them; boys tall and lean, girls of smaller stature and round-faced; Tom, Edward, and Elizabeth, auburn-haired and dressed in forest green, sumptuous brown velvet, and auburn silk respectively. And then Jane, on the end, all blonde ringlets in her powder-blue gown. Their little blonde puppet, their card to play against the queen. Elizabeth thought to herself, _I do not belong in this world. I cannot survive here._ As though the queen felt their eyes on her – which she probably did – she looked up as she accepted a goblet of wine from a page, and her eyes fell upon this row of three dark Seymours and one beacon of light, all staring at her. Elizabeth frowned, incredibly uncomfortable. Next to her, she felt Edward draw in breath. Suddenly, Elizabeth bent at the knee and made an abbreviated curtsey to the queen. Tom and Edward followed suit slowly, nodding their heads, and finally Jane grasped her gown and ever so slightly bent at the knee, offering the barest display of obeisance. She did not even bow her head. But her sweet smile stayed on. Anne tried to smile back but it registered as more a quavering of the lips than anything, and she turned her head away, trying to end the moment.

At once, Tom rounded on Elizabeth. "Why in the blood of Christ did you do that?"

"I knew not what else to do! She was staring straight at us! Why did no one else do anything?"

Edward raked a hand through his hair and took a ragged breath inward. "She is dangerous."

Slightly taken aback, Elizabeth bit her lip. "Why? What do you mean?"

He rolled his eyes again and hustled his siblings behind the pillar. "She could still win. They – the Boleyns – could still win."

Jane tensed, a genuine look of fear in her eyes. "How? The king loves me."

"She is… there is something about her. She has an effect on him, on men. This is not the first time he has tired of her, but she has the power to pull him back in. She is…" Edward craned his neck backward, trying to steal another glance at Anne around the pillar. "There is just something about her."

Of course, Elizabeth knew what he meant. Anne had an incredible appeal, some vitality of her person; it was the way she moved, the way she spoke, the way she laughed and smiled, even the way she turned her head and flicked her eyes about her. Jane had no such element to her. Could a milk-and-honey angel really stand a sustainable chance against the most alluring woman in England? Jane could barely read a sentence, let alone debate theology with her husband and keep him entertained with witty commentary on the newest humanist or political tracts. _Let alone make a man catch his breath when she smirks and flicks her eyelashes down over her eyes_, Elizabeth thought, and suddenly glared at Edward, for she realized that when she had felt her brother suck air into his lungs just a minute before as they all met their queen's eyes, Edward had been for a moment under that spell of attraction that Anne exercised, often without knowing it.

"What is it?" Edward asked, furrowing his brow at her.

"I…" Elizabeth threw her hands up, disgusted with the whole situation. She could not stand to look at him a moment longer, and thankfully their father had left them alone, for she certainly could not tolerate him either. "Nothing. Nothing, brother." Elizabeth turned to Jane with a smile, only to discover that she cared not much for her sister at the moment either. Jane's usually dimpled face had hardened, and there was an undeniable look of jealousy in her eyes. She was jealous of the woman that she was trying to supplant. It was a good thing that she had not sensed Edward's reaction to Anne, however brief; if her own brother could find Anne appealing, how was Jane to tempt Anne's own husband away definitively and keep him there long enough to rid himself of his wife? Much as Elizabeth did not want to ask, she forced herself. "Janey, will you join me with the queen's ladies?" Her tone was forcedly bright.

"No," Tom jumped in.

"She'll stay here with us," Edward affirmed.

"My gown does not match theirs anyway," Jane's tone was leisurely, "I would look quite out of place."

Elizabeth appealed to Jane with her eyes, but Jane seemed uninterested in any further discussion. Her eyes were roaming the hall, perhaps looking for Henry. "For pity's sake," Elizabeth whispered to no one in particular. "She is Her Majesty's lady in waiting. Could she not just spend a little time with the queen?"

"She has other tasks than bearing Anne's train," Edward scoffed, his tone informing Elizabeth that this was the end of the negotiation. Elizabeth turned wordlessly to leave her family, and Edward caught her elbow. "Careful, Lissie," he said low in her ear, his head close beside hers, not looking her in the face, "or soon you will be bearing hers."

Elizabeth wrenched her arm away from Edward and glanced back at Jane, who met her gaze levelly. She waited for Jane to say that, of course, Elizabeth would be her principal lady when she was queen, that Elizabeth would be married quickly and would never attend upon her like a maid, but Jane said nothing. Incredulously, Elizabeth looked to Tom. An almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders told her that this was not his control either; the future of the Seymours, then, lay with Edward and Jane. Elizabeth and Tom meant nothing and were of no real value, but by God, they would lay aside their scruples and serve their family and if they got nothing out of it, then so be it. The woman in powder blue who said so little spoke volumes with her silence.

"I see. Good evening." And she left them, before Edward could wrinkle her silk sleeve again.

As Elizabeth made her way back across the hall, a feeling of comfort washed over her. _Should it not be the opposite way around? _she asked herself. _Should being with my family not give me comfort? _But it did not, and she could not deny that she would rather, at the moment, be with her queen and the other ladies than any of her own kin. Elizabeth glanced upward as she plucked a goblet from a page's tray, nodding thanks, and saw Sir Thomas Wyatt above her, leaning over the railing of the mezzanine gallery above the Hall. He raised his cup prettily, and Elizabeth grinned, mirroring the action. She made a mock-scolding face and gestured that he should join the queen's ladies – what woman wouldn't enjoy Wyatt's company? – but he waved his opposite hand and twisted his face into an exaggerated picture of boredom, glancing the ladies over as if they were old news. His eyes lingered on the queen for a moment too long, Elizabeth thought. She shrugged up at him and smiled again – _your loss it is, Master Wyatt_ – and joined the cluster of ladies around Anne.

"How is your sister?" Mary Shelton asked blithely.

"You know, Mary," Elizabeth responded softly, "I really could not say."

Elizabeth fell into the conversation, unable to help admiring the queen's disposition. She was entirely regal, despite her rather undesirable circumstances. Yesterday, Anne had been rather quiet, after having spent such a strange night in her bathtub the evening prior. After Anne's argument with Master Cromwell that afternoon and her subsequent flight from her chambers, Anne had clearly been upset by whatever she had realized or learnt; Elizabeth was certain that her family was the root of her queen's unhappiness. Anne had barely spoken at dinner that day, shooed her ladies away during the evening hours, and spent the night in solitude. When she had awoken the following morning, she seemed less leaden, but still troubled. The melancholy had not worn off throughout the day, and the queen had not seemed much interested in conversation; she had taken her meals in peaceful silence, tried to remain cheerful, spent the afternoon doing needlework, and caught up on correspondence after supper. Her smile had been ready when anyone came calling, but she was clearly distracted, and had remained so until she had gathered her ladies for their excursions to the garden this very morning. Now, however, the queen seemed much recovered, her skin glowing and the ruby necklace – _clearly the right choice_, Elizabeth congratulated herself – catching the torchlight of the Great Hall. It would be the perfect picture of king and queen, if only it included a king. But His Majesty was probably in some dark corner somewhere, kissing Elizabeth's sister's demure hand, or introducing Edward to Cromwell, or Richard Riche, or someone else who would make Edward feel more important and demand more respect from everyone. Just what the Seymours needed.

As if on cue, the crowds of courtiers parted and bowed as the King of England strode through them, his chief minister beside him. How it must have goaded the Duke of Suffolk to bow to Thomas Cromwell. Elizabeth chewed on the side of her lip, looking for her brother through the crowd in spite of herself. She waited for Henry to summon Edward, to complete her ironic fantasy, but he did not. Elizabeth curtseyed as Anne stood and sank toward the dais, but she glanced up, her head bowed, to watch Henry's reaction to Anne and Jane, on opposite sides of the hall. He did not do much to acknowledge either one, in truth. He was entirely involved with his quiet conversation with Cromwell, and until he reached the middle of the hall and turned to make his cursory grand welcome to the beginning of the summer banquets, he made little indication that he saw any of the courtiers at all.

Elizabeth, though, did not hear Henry's speech. She was watching Cromwell's face; he had backed away as he realized that the king had realized they were in the middle of a banqueting hall full of people who were waiting for His Majesty to speak, and as Cromwell backed away from the center of the floor, he glanced down the hall. Elizabeth meant to look away and listen to her king, but she was transfixed by Cromwell's face. He looked like he had just seen his death. His diplomatic lawyer's face masked most of his horror, but on Cromwell, the tightening of his mouth, the setting of his jaw, and the slight wrinkle in his forehead certainly meant horror. He seemed frozen. Elizabeth waited for him to snap out of it, but for several long seconds he did not, and finally, she followed his gaze, subtly turning her head in the direction toward which he seemed to be staring.

On the dais behind her, the queen was staring past Elizabeth, unseeing, her expression a mirror image of Cromwell's.

ii.

Anne knew the mistake even as she made it. Perched high above her, at a post overlooking the Great Hall and the banquet therein, Thomas Wyatt watched her flinch and recoil even as she spoke the words. He checked at his habit of calling her 'Anne' in his thoughts, and then reasoned that since it was only in his thoughts that he regarded her thus and not under any other circumstances, it was no matter. Anyway, he had known her before she was queen. Long before. Since she was a child, a demanding, interesting, not particularly attractive little girl. Since she returned from France, still demanding, now fascinating, now ravishing. He had climbed trees with her, with George and Mary, and with his own sister all in tow. He had danced lively country dances with her before she learned the art of grace in Francis' court. He had kissed her hand, and her lips, and her neck, and tried to kiss her elsewhere, and although he had failed, he maintained silently that he, and not the king, had the most right of all persons living to call her 'Anne' and not 'Her Majesty.'

"Then you will agree with me," Anne had just said, "that the French are deceitful in everything."  
Wyatt, unseen to the courtiers below him, did not hide the shock on his face. What in God's name was she talking about? His gaze darted from her bare collarbone, where it usually fell, up to inspect her expression. His eyes ran over her cheeks, her mouth, her nose, her eyes, her forehead. Was she flushed? Did she have a fever? She must be ill to speak such ridiculous words. But her face looked as ever it did, save for a slight blush on her cheekbones and an altogether glowing countenance, as though she had been warmed in a bath just before she had come in to dine. Her face was calm, her countenance steady, her eyes sharp and shrewd. She knew what she was doing, but as he watched her spout malice against the realm that she probably loved above England, he watched her lose her nerve and her dignity, and if any of those men in the Hall had known her as well as he himself did, they would have seen, as well, that the words she spoke and the sentiments that drove them were not her own. Everyone knew that she loved France.

"... How many treaties do they honour?" Her eyes shifted about her, waiting for some sign of a positive reaction from someone, anyone. If just one person would appear to be in agreement, would speak out to support her, she could find an ally. If she must abandon her loyalties to France in public, or at least make a statement to that effect, someone must be of that same mind. Wyatt assured her silently that if he were standing before her, he would speak out in agreement. He would slander the French and defend her, believing it no more than she did. But he was on a balcony above her, watching her, watching everyone in the Hall. Watching her. He saw her draw in a breath and force herself to continue, although she was realizing rapidly that despite whatever advice she had been given about pro-Imperialist sentiments at court, no one else was ready to deride France like that, particularly not in public, particularly not in front of the French ambassador. Who should have been Anne's principal advocate, and whose expression of horror at Anne's words was no better disguised than Wyatt's own.

Anne stumbled visibly, but maintained her steady face and adopted a coy, knowing expression. "How many promises do they keep?"

At once, Thomas wanted to shake her. He wanted to run down to the dais and grasp her shoulders and haul her from her gilded chair and shake her until sense found its way back into her brain. Whoever had had the idea that a public denunciation of the French would do anything for Anne's position – for, certainly, it had not been her idea – had led her clearly astray. Wyatt's eyes suddenly flew across the floor of the Great Hall, searching for Thomas Boleyn, and they found him not far from Anne, watching her like a hawk might watch a field mouse. It was not difficult to imagine Boleyn as a hawk; his beady eyes, his beakish nose, the way he could swoop down upon a person; Wyatt had little doubt that he could probably peck a man to death if called upon to do so. Boleyn fancied himself a great diplomat, and certainly, he had proven himself capable in that respect in the past. But now, as Wyatt watched the French ambassador sweep past Boleyn without so much as a nod of acknowledgement, he wondered if Boleyn would be able to survive the damage that he himself was causing. And, personally, he hoped not. He could remember the man standing above him as Wyatt sat helpless on a bench in the gardens of Hever, his hand stretched out, forsaken, on the rough stone beside him, its graceful white partner having just fled at her father's commandment, being told that it was not meet that he should be spending such amounts of time with a virtuous young lady such as Anne Boleyn. The Duke of Norfolk would not have his niece's good marriage name sullied by a flighty young poet and his fixations with her eyes, and a married young poet at that.

As he remembered Boleyn's own eyes widening in an attempt to intimidate him, Wyatt's grip tightened on the stem of his goblet. If Wyatt had his way, he would spirit Anne off to France and spend the rest of his life writing poetry about those eyes, since he had never been able to find the right words to finish any of them in his youth. To hell with Henry, and Cromwell, and Boleyn. He would delve his hands into that hair, something he missed greatly since she ended their 'true friendship,' and delve his member into her, as she had never allowed him during their 'true friendship,' and finally, finally she would become his muse, truly his, and no one else's.

Wyatt's eyes fell next on another Thomas, this time Thomas Cromwell. He was making his rounds, implacable smile on his face, stopping first to gladhand Sir John Seymour and share a knowing smirk with the eldest son, Edward, and then bowing his head to Jane Seymour, his smile warming. _Clever man_, Wyatt commended Cromwell silently, taking a sip from his goblet. _Let the lady know who is in charge, who is so kindly, so selflessly, so dexterously laying the cobblestones that pave her way to the throne._ In a strange way, Cromwell's sense of foresight was so strong that it gave the impression that he had become associated with the Boleyn family back in the 1520s just on the slim chance that the king's raven-haired darling might become queen someday, and the notion that to be on friendly terms with her and her family would serve the lawyer well. Wyatt had no doubt that once Jane was queen – which fate Wyatt could hardly see not coming about – the Seymour brothers would find themselves sorely deceived in Cromwell's cooperative and helpful personality, as would the sugar-sweet blonde herself if ever she found herself on the wrong side of Henry's patience.

As Cromwell caught sight of the Imperial ambassador, he excused himself and wove his way through the crowd toward him, crossing away from the shadowy, half-enclosed corridor where the Seymours, sans one sister, huddled, and moving across the open floor of the Hall. He tracked Cromwell's route past the indignant-looking French ambassador, who was whispering to one of his clerks and gesturing to the stone stairway on one end of the hall that hugged the outer wall, his face scrunched up in confusion and frustration. Cromwell tactfully touched the Frenchman's arm and nodded deferentially before continuing on his way, seeking Chapuys, the only ambassador worth courting tonight. The unfortunate Spaniard had been captured by the two Boleyn men in one corner of the room and was attempting to escape without appearing rude, although Wyatt was not sure why he should care. Watching Thomas Boleyn's generous sneer of a smile, Wyatt could almost see the desperation in the earl's face, and he was sure that if he could see it from this distance, Chapuys could too. Boleyn realized that his position was slipping, had been slipping for some time; George, while not politically astute enough to do much on his own, sensed himself drowning alongside his father. And yet, one was an earl, and the other a viscount. _And…_ Wyatt glanced back at Anne, who was conducting a conversation with two of her jewel-coloured ladies, and at that moment threw her head back and laughed a real Anne Boleyn laugh, _and, she could still win him back._ If anyone had the power to win Henry back after all that had happened between them, it was Anne. It could be tonight; she looked beautiful enough. It could be tomorrow morning; she was serene in the black gowns she had taken to wearing to mass. It could be in ten days; Wyatt had no doubt that her presentation on May Day would be as stunning as it had been every year. _Christ, it could be any time, any time at all._ It dawned on Wyatt that he was imagining Anne winning him, himself, not Henry. She could, it was true, win him, Wyatt, at any time at all, he thought. His love was sprung and spent, but one flicker of those eyelashes, one slow-spreading smile over her shoulder, he realized, would rejuvenate it. He could not tear his eyes away from her for a few long moments more, so sparkling was her face, so bright her cheeks.

Incomprehensibly, the thought came to Wyatt that he needed to warn her. He needed to tell her somehow that she should take better care to think of her future, that her position was slipping through her fingers and that she was failing, had failed, would continue to fail. But he was not her hero, he reminded himself. He was not her champion, not because he was unwilling to be, but because he was not the man that she had chosen to be. She had chosen the wrong man. It was all very romantic to have the king of England as your defender, admirer and lover, but when you were married to him and that marriage was falling apart, it became considerably less romantic and considerably more... dangerous. The thought dawned on Wyatt and he pursed his lips, his face hardening as he watched the candlelight bounce off her neck. Henry would likely rid himself of her if she did not make some drastic change, but it had just occurred to Wyatt that he had the power and probably the will to do worse than that. It would not be the first execution due to the king's displeasure and little else. And yet, His Majesty was not cruel. He was not a monster. Shaking the thought out of his head, Wyatt blinked his eyes, ran a hand over the hint of blonde stubble on his chin and bade the images of Anne's beautiful neck stretched across a wooden block go. That would never happen, he assured himself. Surely that would never happen.

As though she felt him staring, Anne glanced up, her appraising blue eyes standing out despite his distance from her. She threw him a small, noncommittal, queenly smile and let her eyes slide past him, having invested no more than a second in eye contact with him. Her eyes lit with much more joy at the sight of her husband strolling about through the crowd, although he had not acknowledged or really even looked at her. Her head tilted to and fro as she followed the royal body through the crowd, analyzing his quick movements, watching as he dipped his head low to this lord or that knight, made a joke, intimated a secret, secured a vote for the next Parliament, or a host of other things that were by now second nature. Much like ignoring his wife. _He ignores you_, Wyatt gasped silently to Anne. _He ignores you, he will throw you out of his bed and his marriage and his palace... and maybe his kingdom. I would throw myself on a sword for you, and yet you pass me over as though I am nothing, as though you never loved me. You have eyes only for him. And he ignores you. I do not. Please, please, look at me_, his heart, astonishingly and irritatingly aching for her all of a sudden, pleaded. But instead of complying with him, Anne did the opposite, as was her wont, and turned her head the other direction so that he could see the nape of her neck. He watched as she tensed, and followed her gaze to Secretary Cromwell, who was still making his rounds in similar fashion to the king. _The king he may as well be_, Wyatt half-snorted as he took a sip of his wine, averting his eyes from her, letting the spell break once again.

What was this wrenching effect that she had on his heart and stomach, after all these years? After all the anger he had had with her, and all the betrayal, and all the times he had promised to care for her no longer? Apparently not all things were sprung and spent, and Wyatt made a mental remembrance to fall to his knees and beg God to free him from her this evening before his crucifix. The last thing that he owed her was assistance and love. Turning away from her, Wyatt made for the stairs down to the hall, muttering to himself, "Sometime I fled the fire, that me so burnt, and the coals thereof, shall no more me hurt... shall... me no longer hurt?" As he tried out different phrases under his breath, Wyatt neared the stairway and began down it. He wove his way through the crowd, unsure where he was really going, still trying to decide on the syntax for the second part of the sonnet that he was apparently composing.

"Master Wyatt!"

His heart skipped a beat. It was her. Turning stiffly, he made a bow. "Your Majesty."

The eyes sparkled. "Are you anticipating with great excitement the trip to France in a few weeks?"

He nodded. "Of course, Your Majesty."

"I too. It shall be a wonderful visit," she smiled at him, impersonally. "You should consider writing some words for a masque that my ladies and I intend to stage there. You have such a way with words." And there it was, that low intimating tone that only she would be able to achieve in a roomful of people, that slow raising of heavily lashed eyelids, that appraising smile. He looked her over. He was so exhausted of her, tired of her in truth, but again never sated with her.

"Thank you, Madam." He kept his voice level, his expression vacant. "I shall think on it."

A nod. "Do." And she was on to the next, hurting his heart that tried to ignore her even as she turned her head away.

It seemed he spent more time falling in and out of love with her than doing anything else.

There was, of course, the other reason that he felt he should not warn her: she already knew. If he realized that something was afoot, then she did as well. It was part of what drew him to her. She was clever, cleverer than he, more intuitive, more magnetic. He, Wyatt, the great seducer of beauties, the elegant poet and witty satirist, knew that his mind was no match for hers. It irked him, and pricked his lust for her, and broke his heart all at the same time. She was his equal, if not his superior, in everything. Well, everything that could be proven. He had tried to determine the last on many occasions, only to be always frustrated that he could not prove himself to her and win her, to be always rejected and forced to fill his longing for the one woman that he would deem worthy of fidelity and respect and true marriage with women about whom he only pretended to care. So he pretended not to care about her, that she had just been another of his brief thoughtless fancies. And usually, he managed to bring himself near to believing it. And then she would do something like that, and send him straight back to Hell where she could burn him.

He needed more wine.

As he poured some for himself out of a large jug that he found resting on a table against the wall, Wyatt went back to composing.

"And he now sees, that whilom was so blind,

yonder beauty true, that so loves him to scorn;

thus he relinquisheth to her, his heart and mind,

by turns soaring and admiring, narry long til it is torn."

He drained the wine in one gulp, plunking the goblet down on the table. He wiped his mouth, a bit clumsily, with the back of his sleeve. "I've got to write that one down."

iii.

Henry brushed past the poet Thomas Wyatt as he pulled a pretty, dark-haired young lady toward the terrace with him, murmuring in her ear. The girl was slight and thin, with large eyes and a becoming turquoise gown; if Henry recalled correctly, she was one of his wife's ladies. Someone's younger sister. He was never one to forget a lovely face, although it irked Henry to admit that this particular young beauty actually resembled his own wife more than any other lady at court, and this of necessity turned his opinion of her to distaste. And, yes, if he observed her – as Henry did at that moment, turning around with a jerk to watch the blonde poet whispering into the lady's ear, his lips near to grazing her hairline – she looked a great deal like Anne. _Wonder if that is why he fancies her_, Henry mused, the right side of his mouth curling into a sneer that he found difficult to control of late. _I should bed her just to gall him._ Then he shuddered in genuine disgust, realizing that the petite version of his queen would probably look a great deal more like her in the dark, something which he certainly did not relish. Shaking the whole notion off of his shoulders, Henry turned back to face forward and continued to move through the crowd. _Be not cruel, Majesty_, he tutted himself in his thoughts. _Let poor Master Wyatt deflower at least a _version_ of her; Christ knows he never got over losing Anne herself._

At the sight of Jane, all thoughts of raven curls and parted legs fled his mind. Jane was listening to her brother Edward as he dithered on about something, probably chess or the business of catching a king, although from the way her eyes wandered Henry could tell that she had heard it before and had had enough of it. _For God's sake, who _wouldn't_ have their fill of Edward after being with him more than a quarter hour?_ Henry loved her all the more for it. Her chest, demurely accented by a simple crucifix hanging around her neck, inflated slowly as she took a deep breath in and then sighed discreetly in boredom. She sipped her wine, nodding along with Edward as he gestured this way and that, jabbed his brother Tom in the chest, and indicated with a wave of his hand the royal dais. A yawn threatened to escape her as Henry neared, having slowed his pace so that when he passed her she would have had time to notice him, and Henry wanted more than anything to rescue her from boredom, to kiss her rosebud mouth and make sure she was never bored again. If he could get her into his bed he would have her exhausted from pleasure, and yawning for that reason, and no other. And get her into his bed – after he got a ring on her finger – he would. Jane's virtue, unlike Anne's feigned purity that served to mask her lascivious mind, went much deeper than her hymen.

He had almost reached her now, and as he was the King of England, the Seymours could hardly help but notice his approach. Henry had no intention of stopping to chat; he needed to speak with Chapuys and get some sort of plan underway with Cromwell. Yet as he neared Jane, he felt such a sense of comfort that he scarcely had the will to propel himself forward, knowing he would soon be too far from her to see the way her angelic smile appeared so readily at the sight of him. Jane had no need to be sultry, nor to appraise Henry, nor to seduce him every day. She was enough, in and of herself, and although she was not the most confident creature in the world, she was enough for him. As dimples dotted her happy cheeks, Henry thought what it would be like to be with a woman so real, so tangible, so utterly uncomplicated and sweet and honest – not that Jane was simple. No, there was much more to Jane than a lovely face and masses of blonde hair, but all of it was good. Every inch of her was good. Her purity emanated from her very being, refreshing, intoxicating Henry who had been for so many years under the spell of a sweltering temptress.

Edward and Tom bowed their heads as he passed. "Majesty," they murmured atop one another, but Henry barely heard, as he slowed his gait to delay passing her by.

"Jane," Henry whispered.

She did not bow; she sensed that there was no time for formality. Instead, Jane bobbed the slightest bit and lowered her eyes. "My king."

He was within an arm's length of her now, and he was painfully aware of how closely her brothers were watching them. He had agreed to see her only in the company of her family, but God, that was tedious. For a brief moment Henry entertained the ridiculous idea that her brothers might continue the practice after the marriage, observing the consummation and accompanying Henry to Jane's bed every night to make sure that their sister's dignity was upheld. _Come if you like, boys,_ Henry challenged them silently, imagining their discomfort when they heard their sweet sister moaning underneath the King of England, when they averted their eyes to avoid seeing her curled toes peeking out from under the drawn curtains of the bed. _See what a fecund prince you've got atop your sister_. At once Henry desired above all to sweep Jane into his arms, hold her torso against his own, dip her backward and kiss her deeply for the whole court to see. He would never have done it, of course, but when he noticed the blushing of Jane's cheeks as his eyes found hers Henry remembered that he should not even be thinking such things of such a pure maiden as Jane.

Henry crooked his right index finger a little, so that the joint at its halfway point jutted out just enough to catch her same finger when his hand grazed past hers, which still held her skirts from her half-curtsy. Her skin touching his, even that tiny fleeting moment, soothed Henry's nerves immensely. Jane registered the touch and could not resist turning her head to smile even more broadly at her king, craning her neck to watch him go. Henry indulgently ran his knuckles across the back of her hand as he left her, winking before he turned his own smiling face away.

_What a pure smile you have, my darling_, Henry complimented her silently, his eyes searching for Chapuys but his mind imagining blonde hair and soft skin. _What an angelic countenance. What fertile skin, what glowing eyes. What a pretty mouth._ He could not shake the impure thoughts of what his mouth wanted to do with hers; try as he would, Henry was imagining the union of their lips and tongues, rather than how nice it felt to touch her hand; he was imagining the delight and anxiety and lust that he would sense in her kiss on their wedding night, before her royal shift fell from her shoulders, rather than how serene her smile was tonight; he was imagining how her chest would feel against his as she arched her back and wrapped her arms around him in bed, rather than admiring her virtue in wearing a crucifix to a notoriously fanciful annual banquet.

With a flick of his eyes, he summoned Chapuys into a small presence chamber off the Great Hall. He glanced over his right shoulder to find his wife staring straight at him, her expression earnest, but he barely let her crack a smile before he turned his head fully away from her. His mind wanted to remain still on Jane, but now the vision of Anne, goblet frozen halfway to her parted lips, her eyes wide, gazing over her slightly lifted shoulder, plagued him. Henry smiled at Chapuys as they crossed the threshold, shaking his head a bit as though to clear the thought of blue eyes from his mind. His head instinctively began to turn back toward her before he physically stopped himself. _Leave her where she is_, he lectured himself, _even though your foreign policy has been for years inextricably bound to her – that is no reason to look at her. You look anywhere else for all the remainder of the time. Leave her where she is now._ Pressing his lips together, Henry tried to fight down the sentiment that it was Anne's fault his foreign policy was such a mess, replacing his anger at her with anger at Charles. Had Charles simply recognized Anne, none of this would have happened. But had none of this happened, he would never have fallen in love with his lovely Jane. And he would be, with her, the most happy. Of this Henry had no doubt.

Yet as he looked at Eustace Chapuys Henry felt a fresh surge of anger, and he tried to explain it to himself. He was angry that Charles dared to challenge him so. Charles had no right to defy Henry – _Anne was – is – my wife._ Charles could have, should have, accepted her. For God's sake, Henry certainly did not appreciate the ancestry of Francis' wife, but that did not stop him from paying her respect as Queen of France. Why could Charles not learn from the examples of those kings who were older and wiser than he? He remembered Anne's soft, silent tears on a night shortly after Elizabeth was born: "No one will accept her, Henry, and I am sorry that she is a girl-child, but I … I wish not that she would be derided because I am her mother. For much as we may love her, I know that later in her life people will hurl slander and disdain against her, and it will pierce her heart, and she may be shielded from some because you are her father, but … that which she does have to withstand will come because I am her mother. I have doomed my own child to a life of defense." Between sniffles, and although Henry tried with gentle kisses and fingertips to clear her cheeks of tears, Anne had lamented for upwards of an hour the fact that no one would accept Elizabeth. She had never identified this verbally as a result of the utter lack of respect for and acceptance of her queenship throughout Europe, but it was clear that this was the cause. Indeed, Henry realized on the instant, most of Anne's time on the throne had been spent trying to get this or that entity to admit that it was with legitimacy that she sat there. She had never achieved it. What a pity, he had often thought in the past, that Anne had avoided becoming mistress to one king, refused to become mistress to another, and had waited – and made Henry himself wait – nearly a decade for consummation, only to be called and regarded as a whore.

What did it mean, he wondered to himself, that he was still angry that Charles had refused to accept her? Did he side with her? Was there – could there be – any doubt that she was a witch, that their marriage, and by extension her queenship, was false? _Of course not_. He shook it out of his head again, shook her honest blue eyes out of his head, again. There was nothing honest about them. He resettled his thoughts on Jane, on the peace that would come with their marriage.

Henry barely acknowledged Cromwell as he felt his minister slip into the room behind him and the ambassador and take up residence at an appropriately deferential distance from the royal meeting. Facing Chapuys, Henry tried to see nothing but the Spaniard in front of him, tried not to see the tears of his second wife and her desolation and her genuine – or so it had seemed – personal agony that no one would accept her, that sort of agony that comes from self-doubt and deep-seeded emotional pain. As Chapuys spoke, Henry tried to place himself in Charles' shoes, but all that he could see was that Charles had refused something that would have hurt him not at all, and that his refusal had caused such trouble, and such pain, for all involved other than Charles. Again, he found himself irritated with his own thoughts. _Stop thinking about her, about that – Charles was right to refuse; she is not your true wife, you know this, and her tears mean nothing to you. Nothing. Nothing, they mean… _ Henry glanced down at his thumb, suddenly certain that he could feel the cool salt water of her tears on his hand. Nothing was there. _Nothing. They mean nothing._

"Return to papal obedience… and the restoration of the Lady Mary to the line of succession."

Mary. Katherine. Spanish. Spanish words, Spanish accent – well, Mary did not have an accent. She did not have any accent at all – although he could not be sure of that, since he had not for so long spoken with her. Anne's fault. Anne with her French ways. And those blue eyes. Mary, though, had blue eyes as well. As did Katherine. Jane did not. Jane's eyes were brown, deep, sweet, understanding. Henry nearly laughed out loud, but first glanced up at Chapuys, who was clearly unaware of the source of Henry's amusement, and so Henry choked back his laughter. Maybe that was the problem! He needed more brown-eyed women in his life. And less dark-haired ones. Yes. Jane was perfect. Although… that crucifix. She was a good catholic, but a papist catholic. Return to papal obedience. She would love that. Probably a scheming minx in her own right, just like Anne. Maybe even more subtle than Anne; yes, Jane was certainly more subtle than Anne. Maybe even smarter than Anne. But no… no woman was smarter than Anne. More beautiful than Anne? Better between the sheets? He had to draw the line there, for Anne possessed special appeal for the eyes of men, and pleased above what most women could ever dream without even playing in bed. On instinct Henry glanced toward where she sat, but he could not see her through the open doorway to the Great Hall. He caught Cromwell's eye – Cromwell, who had been Anne's main friend and ally at court. No longer. But Henry had no doubt that if called upon to return to her cause, Cromwell would. Not that Henry was considering that in any way. Yet suddenly he wanted to turn to Cromwell and ask him… ask him what? Whether he did not think Anne had a talent of being entirely pleasing to a man without ever removing an article of clothing. He wondered what Cromwell would say to that.

No, no. That was not what he wanted to ask Cromwell. Christ's blood, what did he want to ask Cromwell? Chapuys was still talking: "A female succession." Henry stopped himself from rubbing his temple; he could not appear weak or confused. Not that he was weak or confused. Was he drunk? He had barely had any wine. He needed to make sure that he did not have any wine, in case… he thought of Thomas Wyatt and the little Anne-double. In case he was called upon to act in the capacity of Wyatt later. But with whom could he expect to act thus? Not Jane. Not Anne, of course. No one. He would not mind giving a try to a young lady at court sometimes… maybe Wyatt's little sweetheart. But no, she looked too much like Anne. He would never want that – would he? No. He had Jane. Jane was perfect – what had he been thinking, considering her a schemer a moment ago? She was an angel. He needed to prove himself worthy of Jane's undivided, pure love, which they would consummate on their wedding night. Which was not tonight. Well, then he could have as much wine as he wanted. Was that what Chapuys was insinuating? Henry glared at him, trying to snap his vision back to focus on the ambassador's face, fuzzily reaching for the exact phrase that Chapuys had said that had brought Henry to this conclusion. It was more of a suspicion than a conclusion, really. Suspicion was a dangerous thing. But not if you were the King of England. Which Henry was.

Had Chapuys implied that Henry was not acting in his capacity as king? That he would not have a son who would be a better ruler than… _Mary_? Than a girl? May as well put Elizabeth on the throne, as she was at this very moment. Just pluck her from the arms of her governesses and hand her the scepter. That would go roughly as well as Mary on the throne. What in the name of Christ was Chapuys saying? Of course he could have a son. And would. With Jane. Anne was the problem. Katherine had been the problem. Women who bore only girls were cursed, everyone knew that. Henry broke away from Chapuys and took a step back in the small room, ignoring the fact that his feet drew him in the direction of his wife – _and also of Jane_, he reminded himself – and laughing at the falseness of women. This one and that had promised him a son, and who had delivered? None. Save for Bessie. But Bessie had promised him nothing, except that she would meet him in bed at sunset that first evening. And Jane had not promised him anything, either – a token of good luck.

But what did Chapuys mean to insinuate, then – for Charles would never countenance his ambassador implying that Katherine of Aragon was at fault for Henry's lack of a male heir. So then Chapuys must be insinuating that it was Henry himself who was at fault. This realization brought Henry's blood near to boiling. He told himself to keep his tone level, and for the first half-sentence, he did:

"What are you implying – _ambassador_?" He waited for Chapuys to retract, but to his outrage Chapuys did not, instead remaining completely still save for a creasing of his forehead as though to implore Henry how he had offended. "Am I not a man… as other men?" He shouted the last into the Great Hall. The first few layers of courtiers outside the small chamber turned to look at the red-faced King of England, his arms flung wide, beads of perspiration slicking his hairline and a few of them trickling down the sides of his face, like tears. Henry tried to mask his rage with joviality – "Am I not?" – and failed miserably. "_Am I not?"_ Still, Chapuys' implacable expression remained in place. _You cannot get a son_, said a voice in Henry's head, and he could swear that it had a Spanish accent. Charles? Chapuys? Katherine? Mary? No, Mary did not have an accent, he reminded himself with a quick shake of his head. _You are a man unable to conceive a son strong enough to survive._ It could have been anyone's voice – indeed, Henry realized as he thought about it later, it may have been his own – but in the moment the voice manifested itself in Chapuys, and Henry grabbed him by the collar, barely resisting the urge to smash his head on the rough stone floor beneath their feet. He was vaguely aware that the music and merriment of the banquet behind him had faded into stillness. Good. Everyone needed to hear this – everyone, anyone, who might ever consider daring to slander the King of England's virility. "_You_ do not know all my _secrets_!" Dragging Chapuys along with him a step or two toward the Great Hall, Henry debated whether to haul him outside and string him from the palace gates or throw him to the ground and force him to kiss Henry's feet, and kick him in the face while he so did. But his mouth continued on its tirade and Henry found himself unable to do either.

"If the emperor wants to deal with me," Henry stipulated through clenched teeth, raising his voice so that all could hear, "then he will have to first apologize for _all_ of his ill treatment of me in the past!" Yes, this was true. Millions of examples came to mind as Henry took a quick glance around the Great Hall: Charles' breach of the betrothal between himself and Mary; his abandonment of Henry on the French campaigns of 1523 and 1524; his betrayal of English interests at the sacking of Rome; his alliances through marriage with France; his ambition in the New World after he had made an agreement with Henry to wait until they could pursue such a venture together as uncle and nephew. Henry could easily recall his anger at all of Charles' betrayals of him in the past, and had an urge to narrate these to his courtiers who stood, rooted, staring back at their king. Henry tightened his grip on Chapuys, who was finally looking appropriately flustered, preparing to inform him of what a disgusting master he had. But then Henry's eyes slid, of their own will, to the royal dais, and the wide blue eyes that met him there removed from his mind all images of his daughter and his first wife and his battle plans for France and his exchequer and replaced them with only one image: Anne's matted curls, mottled nose, and puffy lips, as his fingers brushed at her cheeks. Covered in tears. His fingers felt wet again, and inexplicably this compelled him more than any of those other memories. The words sprang, unbidden, to his lips:

"He must _accept_ Queen Anne."

An even deeper hush fell over the Hall. Anne herself looked as though Jesus had just appeared to tell her that she could, in fact, use indulgences to buy a plot in heaven. _'Accept Queen Anne'? That is your monumental demand for Charles' obeisance? He must 'accept Queen Anne'?_ Henry wanted, once again, to shake his throbbing head or rub his pounding temples. Christ's blood, why had he said that? The room was beginning to swim a little before him. He was angry with himself for having said that, but then the realization that he had said it began to fade from his mind until it was a hazy memory, although it had just happened moments before. Henry suddenly could not remember the source of his anger, and this made him even more angry. But he could not afford to lose any more of his composure in front of his people. Gulping down the cold, shaking feeling that had begun to overtake his body, Henry righted Chapuys on his feet and hissed, "That is all that I have to say to your _master_." He turned on his heel, threw Cromwell a glare for good measure, and strode out of the room, through flocks of courtiers that bustled backward and jostled each other to let their king through. Behind him, he could feel confused stares, Spanish and English, probably French and Italian too; and he did not care. As Henry swept through the crowd, making for his own chambers, he made the mistake of glancing once more at the royal dais and saw Anne, frozen in her chair, in a position which suggested that she had been on the verge of leaping out of it to run… to him? Why this mattered, he could not say. It did not. Henry looked for Jane, waiting for Edward to shove her out in front of the crowds of courtiers so that His Majesty would have better access to her, to show her off in front of the court as his unannounced next wife. Henry would not have cared; he just wanted to see a comforting face. Unfortunately, no honey waves were forthcoming, and no crucifix gleamed up at him from the neckline of a powder blue gown. _Well enough_, Henry thought, not having checked in his stride and approaching the exit of the Great Hall. He would happily spend the evening alone.

But as he neared the archway, Henry felt something tugging him back. Was he not the king? He had not ordered this banquet, true, but that made him no less the figurehead of this court and country, and with this position had always come responsibilities, none of which he had ever shirked. He could not begin now – he could not become the intemperate king who behaved as a child when his desires were not fulfilled. It had nothing to do with anyone in this Hall, not Anne, not Jane, not Cromwell – nor with what any of them, any ambassadors or courtiers, would report back to anyone else about him. Henry simply needed to return and preside as king over his court. Even if that meant sitting next to a shrilling, smoldering brunette rather than composing a love poem for a beloved blonde. _I can do the composing later_, he reasoned with himself.

Henry turned slowly to see that his whole court was waiting, bowing, for him to leave the Hall or return to it. His people awaited his decision, and he would not disappoint them. Henry clapped his hands together, pasting a wide, magnanimous smile on his face. "Continue!" He gestured at Mark Smeaton, who was half-bent at the waist, fiddle still perched on his shoulder. "Play on, Master Smeaton!" Lords and ladies straightened stiffly; dance partners reached for one another hesitantly; knights reached for another helping of pudding cautiously. Henry threw his hands in the air, his voice coming out a little more harshly than he meant it to: "Eat! Drink! Dance! Be merry!" With one last flourish, he added: "_Celebrate_!"

Unfortunately, he did not feel much like celebrating within the space of five minutes when he had resigned himself to the chair beside his dearly beloved wife. Although he had given Anne only the most dutiful smile and then avoided her eye as he approached and lowered himself into his chair, Henry could have taken a bite out of the tension that fitted itself uncomfortably between their bodies. He was painfully aware of her every movement, conscious that she was trying to move with discretion, to avoid irritating or provoking him, but also that she desired more than anything for him to look at or speak to her. Even more unnerving was his constant burning desire to glance at her out of the corner of his eye for, although Anne was trying to be inconspicuous, Henry could sense her every movement and gesture, and a dangerous heat was developing in his chest as a result. But he was sated to death with this woman. Why, how, could he still have these sentiments when he was in her presence? What was this spell that she had cast over him? His heart was racing. God, he just wanted Jane. Jane never made him feel like this. Jane's presence was a beautiful, serene, calming force. In his youth, although it pained Henry to admit this, he would have desired nothing more than this loin-tingling, stomach-burning, fantasy-provoking connection with a woman – indeed, this had been the basis of many of his youthful young affairs. _Anne included_, Henry told himself. _There was nothing more than that; she was nothing more than a fountain in which you were not allowed to swim_. He folded and unfolded his hands, trying to ignore the condensation that had appeared in their creases and forcing his eyes to search the crowd in front of him instead of making quick darting glances to his left. _God's blood, I am too old for this._

He wanted to dance. With Jane. He had spotted her, having moved a bit from her location when he had touched her hand a short bit ago, and he could see the shadows and torchlight bouncing off of her gleaming hair as she dipped her head to listen to something that Tom, her more likeable brother, was murmuring to her. She stifled a giggle behind her hand, swatting Tom lightly on the arm with her other. Henry would have paid anything to know what was making her laugh, to be part of her conversation, to feel safe and relaxed and blissful. If he could snake his hand through her arm and get her out onto the floor, he could discuss whatever he wanted with her – and he should like to discuss their wedding plans, were he given his choice of topics. But that may be a bit too much too soon. Yes, when he was rid of Anne he would send a dozen seamstresses to Jane with bolts of fabric from all over the world, and bid her to create for herself a new wardrobe to last her through her first year as Queen of England. But now, maybe, it was too soon to be discussing aspects of their coming marriage. Instead he could ask Jane what she thought of Erasmus' new book, or… well, he realized as he scratched at his chin, still staring at Jane's shining blonde hair, he did not know if Jane actually read much. She was so virtuous, it was difficult to imagine her engaging in such radical activity. So much more becoming a woman than Anne was she that it seemed inherently wrong to attribute any of Anne's traits to her. It was not that Henry was at all disappointed that he should never discuss literature and theology with her; _it is just_, he assured himself, _that you have gotten so used to a woman who forces her opinions in your face that you are accustomed to think of women as acting that way in general… which_, he cracked a smile as he watched Jane's expression transform into one of utter innocence, a surprised smile gracing her parted lips as her doe eyes slid upward and sideways in the most angelic fashion imaginable, _is clearly not the way of things._

He could not, of course, dance with Jane. That was all that he needed; to irk Anne into further begging for private time with him by exhibiting his first affections in front of the whole court. He could just picture it, and he stopped himself from imitating Anne in the shrill voice that he sometimes used to impersonate her when he was alone: _"Henry, why must you humiliate me so, my love? Know you not how much I love you, how much I suffer, when you treat me thus in public? You drive me to distraction, my own husband, you cause me to pray Jesus Christ to send me patience and perseverance, for which I thought I no longer had much need, having exhausted my reserves thereof during the years I waited to marry you…"_ Henry realized that Anne's complaints had morphed into Katherine's in his mind, her dark hair and blue eyes becoming those of the elder dark-haired, blue-eyed wife, her graceful French lilt turning into a chopping Spanish accent. Anne's complaints of Henry's fantasized actions turning into Katherine's verbatim protestations about Henry's actual past actions. Not that that made them any more valid. How similar were the first two women to whom he had bound himself in matrimony, he thought. Rigid, demanding, strong-willed… stubborn, really, to a fault. He would free himself from all that with his third match, to a soft, sweet angel.

"God, I need it done, and quickly," he muttered to himself before he had realized what he was doing. Henry cringed immediately and held his breath, hoping that no one had heard.

No such good fortune. "What have you said, husband?" Anne inquired brightly, leaning toward him. He could smell her rosewater perfume, and before he could stop himself – _curse my compulsivity_ – he was leaning in too, breathing her in, close enough to whisper or kiss. He got lost in her eyes. For lack of anything better to do, Henry cleared his throat, with effort, and tried to find his voice.

"I…"

A dark shape had approached the dais rapidly and now bowed to the royal couple. "Majesty, excuse me-"

He could have kissed Cromwell. Pulling back from Anne, who had gone ashen for some reason, Henry nearly leapt out of his chair. "Master Cromwell!" He crooked his finger and beckoned Cromwell up. "Thank Christ you're here," he whispered in Cromwell's ear. "She is ruining my evening."

Cromwell registered Anne's presence with a quick flick of his eyes, and responded to Henry's comment not at all. "Majesty, I wanted to discuss with you the terms of the Emperor's alliance offer. I have taken the liberty of conferring further with Ambassador Chapuys and-"

"Wife," Henry suddenly said, under the din of the Hall, turning back to his queen from his minister, to the shock of both, and holding up an index finger to signal for Cromwell to wait. "Did it please you that I demanded Charles recognize you?"

A rosy blush spread across Anne's collarbone and her cheeks simultaneously. "Of course, husband." She looked so surprised. Was it not ironic that she should be surprised that he would defend her interests? She was, after all, his wife. At least as long as legalities were concerned. The irony of that was that she was not, after all, his wife, in any other way, and he knew that he felt that way, and she knew that he felt that way, but neither of them could let the other know what they each knew themselves. He was planning to rid himself of her for another, a power that she had helped bring to him when she had insisted he do it for her, and now he no longer regarded her as the wife for whom he had waited a decade, because she had failed him, and lied to him, and in all likelihood cast a spell over him in the bargain. But it was so funny, so deliciously ironic, that she looked surprised – because it was perfectly valid that she should be surprised. Her expectant, innocent witch's stare pushed his hysterical mental ranting over the edge, and Henry let a chuckle escape his lips.

"It was funny," he explained, rolling his hand over in the air between himself and his wife, running his fingers along the tension that he had felt there since he sat down. "Ambassador Chapuys said the most ridiculous thing, about the Lady Mary, he… what was it, Cromwell?" Henry twisted back around to face Cromwell, beckoning him into the conversation; Anne's face had darkened at the mention of her step-daughter. "What was it that Chapuys said Charles would require for the Lady Mary?"

Cromwell cleared his throat and shifted his weight, clearly uncomfortable. "Her restoration to the succession, Majesty," he murmured, glancing up through his eyelashes at Anne's blanched face, only for them to look away from each other quickly in mutual dislike.

"Yes," Henry went on. "Yes, and I thought it was funny, because of how much you and I have done to legitimize our own lovely daughter." He tripped on despite the brightening of Anne's face at the mention of her child. "And it reminded me – do you remember that evening in bed, sweetheart, when you wept and cried and lamented that no one would ever love Elizabeth for who she was, and that her life would always be difficult, because she had had the misfortune of having you as her mother, and try as you would to demonstrate your piety and kindness, everyone called – well, still calls – you 'The Great Whore'?"

Anne's face was the very picture of horror. "I…"

"She did." Henry nodded at Cromwell. "It was heartbreaking. It was all I could think of while I was listening to Eustace. You should have seen. You know, everyone thought that Anne was all confidence and severity after Elizabeth was born, but in truth she was fearful and sensitive and concerned for her daughter, in a way that only a mother can be… in a way that every mother should be."

Stunned silence fell over the royal couple and the king's minister. Cromwell swallowed, unbeknownst to Henry responding silently that in fact, he himself was acquainted with Anne's tender love and concern for her daughter, and that he had comforted her – albeit not in bed – over much the same concerns just after the birth. How long had it been before she had been able to communicate these to her husband? But Henry was staring fondly past Anne, perhaps imagining the mother of his next child, perhaps remembering his own mother.

"You might not believe this, Cromwell, but I wiped her tears away. These very fingers." Henry held his hands up for Cromwell's inspection. Cromwell remained rooted, staring deferentially to his left. Henry reached out suddenly, tracing Anne's cheekbone with his thumb. Cromwell's jaw dropped, and he wrenched his head sideways to see Edward Seymour take a stumbling, disbelieving step forward in the crowd. Edward narrowed his eyes at Cromwell, his face clearly demanding, "Sweet Jesus, are they reconciling? Do something!" Cromwell returned with the minutest of nods and composed himself, putting on this most thoughtful minister's expression.

"Majesty, I have spoken with Eustace further, and I must say I am-"

Henry snatched his hand back from the entirely bewildered Anne, who looked halfway between crying again and preparing to flee the Hall in shame; by God, if Henry had not just shared details of their second-most intimate bedroom activity. The king folded his hands over one knee and reclined in his chair as though he had not just described his wife's deepest fear and pain for all who could hear as though it was a Holbein miniature. "Later, Master Cromwell. The imperial alliance is not necessarily the top of my prioritized items at the moment. This is an evening for celebration."

Cromwell nodded, bowed, and backed away obediently. Henry now saw Edward Seymour, a look of panic frozen on his shrewd face, talking rapid-fire at his blonde sister, whose eyebrows were furrowed in confusion and fear. _Christ, Edward, you are ruining her for me_, Henry thought irritably. He needed to get Jane away from her eldest brother with all speed. _Tonight is a night for celebration… and yet I am surrounded by nothing but distractions and interruptions, discomfort and unease. Nothing but bodies stands between myself and my one true love, and yet I cannot rid myself of the obstacles which should matter not at all._

But then a thought occurred to him.

Henry was on his feet before he could think it through, although this, he trusted, was not a decision he would come to regret. "Stop the music!" Mark stopped immediately, and without him the music died within moments. "I've an announcement," Henry grinned. "As you all know, this banquet is an annual tradition, observed to recognize and celebrate the beginning of the summer season. It serves as a precursor to the May Day festivities." The members of court gazed back at him eagerly. "But tonight you have been let down, for the king and queen ourselves have abstained from much merriment at all." He glanced down at Anne, whose bafflement from his earlier revelation was still evident in her face. She met his gaze hopefully and a bit fearfully, as though afraid what would come out of his mouth next. "Your queen," Henry continued, his eyes still on Anne's, "is known as the best dancer in this court, and yet tonight she sits quietly amongst her ladies. I propose to change that."

Now Anne was grinning. She was on her feet beside him, her cheeks flushed with pleasure, smiling so hard that her chest strained with the effort of keeping the rest of her body in check. She barely refrained from grabbing his hand. Her mouth opened to accept his invitation, then closed, waiting for him to properly invite her.

Some dark part of Henry caused his mouth to salivate with pleasure as he delivered his next sentence: "I would like for my queen to honour with a dance the man who has aided in every way during her queenship, as a token of the friendship that has existed between her family and him for the past years; in respect, and alliance…" Henry gave a diplomatic guffaw. "And in the hopes that she can teach him a thing or two about exhibition-style dancing, I insist that my lovely wife dance a turn with my most trusted adviser-" a gesture of the right hand "-Master Thomas Cromwell."

Henry sat back down in his chair, entirely pleased with himself, leaving his wife standing stark, just as her red nose stood out on her face when she cried, in front of the court. He absorbed Anne's discomfort, soaking it up like a sponge, the pleasure of the burning in his stomach at having caused it almost overwhelming him. He glanced back at Cromwell, who was as white as heaven and looked like he was being dragged by his fingernails to hell. _Oh, lighten up_, Henry chided him silently. _I did not think you would be pleased about it, but accept this commission, as you do all others, with grace. You feel the same about her that I do; see the irony, man. Enjoy it. Savour it. Relish it. Besides, you may not be a creature of great agility, but that is half the fun of it… at least for me._

**UP NEXT: **

Anne nearly snatched her arm back as she felt Cromwell's knuckle touch the band of her wedding ring, probably unconsciously; he had probably not even noticed the contact. They were making slow, graceful progress down the floor toward their final position for the dance, but Anne suddenly found herself wondering if he was wearing the same type of shirt now that he had been that other afternoon, when her hands had been inside his jacket and her ring had snagged the fabric. In a moment of hysterical self-derision, Anne wondered if she had torn the linen of Cromwell's undershirt and whether she should offer to have a new one made for him. _Well,_ she reasoned, holding back a horrified giggle, _he ripped two buttons from my collar. I should inform him that he owes me a new Venetian ruffle._

Review if you'd like! Hope you all enjoyed! =)


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **Good evening my loyal readers! I hope this update finds you all well and eager to get on with the story! I am moving full steam ahead with my thesis so my updates have definitely been unfairly rare, but I promise, promise that will change once the thesis is turned in (mid-March). In the meantime, I am now delivering, as-promised, the first (deliciously tense) face-to-face Anne/Cromwell interaction. This chapter is much much shorter than my usual ones, but it is a singular scene and I didn't think it fair to shove it with the next chapter, which is more like the previous one. I hope you all soak this up and love it – please review, they make me so happy! I need lots of moral support as I power through my thesis.

Straggletag, WELCOME! I'm so glad you like the story – and I have every intention of continuing until this story is up, and there's much more to come, never fear! (Love your name by the way!)

WhenThePawn – hi! Loved your string of quick updates last month, your new chapters make my day. I am loving writing the tension between all parties – hopefully you enjoy the Anne/Cromwell tension in this chapter. The Seymours are admittedly your turf, but I am having fun fitting them into my AU situation in this scenario. Jane will be a lot more complex of a character in this story than, if I do say so myself, I have really seen her developed in other stories. She is usually either the pious, innocent woman or some sort of incredibly manipulative plotter. Here we will see that she is as conflicted and resilient, yet unsure, as anyone else – even to the extent that my characterization of her could be compared with that of an early-romance Anne Boleyn (with the obligatory fundamental differences). Elizabeth is going to be interesting too. Please update soon – I miss your Lissie!

IronPen! Thank you so much for your compliments =) I am so glad you love the story so far – and no, definitely nowhere near finished. You'll all have to bear with me! There won't be tons of passionate stuff because I am trying to keep this as dramatic yet realistic as possible, to the extent that you could see it actually happening in real life / between the scenes that I include from the show. And I do LOVE James Frain! And Natalie as well, of course – and the two of them together have great chemistry on-screen, not to mention how their similar looks – lovely eyes, curly dark hair – contributes to my undercurrent of how frankly similar they are. I hope you love this little chapter as much as the rest!

Nata – there will be much more fun interpretation of Henry's craziness and his thoughts. He will be by turns sympathetic, maddening, and funny. There won't be a whole ton of Wyatt, but he is a fun character to write so I'll be working him in in the future as well! As for Cromwell as Wolsey's loyal patron, don't forget that he abandoned him in the end – and in a much more real way than in the series. I wrote a huge paper last year on political faction in the falls of Wolsey and Cromwell and the evidence for Wolsey's downfall leans startlingly in favor of another source than faction, notwithstanding the Boleyn presence at court. Cromwell very much made his choice and there is no evidence that he begrudged the Boleyns anything for Wolsey's fall. Anyway, we can agree to disagree on that point – my stance is though that Anne and Cromwell, being so likeminded, could have been an amazingly dynamic duo under different circumstances.

ANNA! Loving your story more than words. (Everyone, go read Anna's story, 'A Land for Ladies' – it's brilliant!) Please keep up the frequent updates! Heh heh, I knew you would love my delicate little references – I always wonder how many people get them! We will have to see who's still standing at the end of this, that's all I will say – although everyone who's read any of my A/Ns knows that the queen is still going to lose her head. =( Yes, Henry is definitely on the brink of hysteria, but his journey will get even more colorful before we're finished. And there will be more POV worked in and by different other characters as we go. I think I can have Lizzie slapping Edward after Anne's execution, yeah, why not? =)

Hi, Pandora! I'm so glad you appreciated all this tedious Henry's-inner-workings business. He is fantastic to write, as are the Seymours, and I agree that they can be more fascinating than the Boleyns – especially since there are twice as many children (children that matter politically, that is) and there's the whole awkwardness of sibling rivalry, incestuous Sir John and so forth. Edward is SUCH an implosive personality in this story, and in the series, too, I think – and I love that. I am so glad everyone loved my Lizzie! There will be more of her, to be certain! Happy reading – and get comfy, we won't know everyone's fates for awhile yet!

And now… the dance scene.

21 April 1536 – Evening

She could not decide whether to wipe the smile off of her face before someone suspected her adultery or sigh and collapse on the dais in order to escape being forced to touch him. Her eyes flitted between her husband and Cromwell; she was too dumbfounded to do anything more than that. At length the Hall turned silent and it was just Anne, standing with a nervous smile on her shaking cheeks, the nail of her middle finger pressing into the pad of her thumb in anxiety. Henry smirked up at her. He knew what he had done to her. Did he? Did he know? _He cannot. This is just another of his games._ He just wanted to watch her writhe in agony. She cursed herself inwardly for jumping out of her chair in excitement at the prospect of dancing with him after he had, not five minutes before, confided a moment of her deepest personal fear and most intimately shared sorrow to Thomas Cromwell, of all people. Why was she such a glutton for punishment?

Cromwell was similarly frozen in the crowd, the courtiers that had clustered around him as he left the dais having stepped back discreetly a few feet to avoid sharing any association with the man who had the task of partnering the queen. _God. _Partnering_ the queen. Lord help me._ Henry smiled a conspiratorial smile at him, nodded his head at his standing wife, and raised his eyebrows. Cromwell found his voice, for it was clear that Anne was hardly about to. "I … I would be honoured, Majesty."

Anne's stomach contorted at the sound of his acceptance, and she feared she might be ill in front of the entire court at the thought of partnering Cromwell in a dance. _God, strike me dead here and now, end this for me_, she prayed desperately. She shot daggers at Cromwell. _You would be honoured? For God's sake._ Though Anne knew it was a mistake, she remained rooted where she stood; she was aware that her husband would lose patience with her in a moment but she could not decide what to do or how to respond to what had just been demanded of her.

"Thank you, Master Secretary," Henry responded benevolently. He looked at Anne expectantly. "Wife?"

She twisted her lips into some semblance of a realistic smile and nodded back at her husband. When Anne glanced up, she saw that Cromwell had turned and begun to make his way to the center of the floor and take his place among the dancers that had been making merry there, waiting for her to join him. Noting the slight, Anne took the first step of the short few that separated the dais from the floor. However, Henry had noticed the slight too. "Cromwell!" His voice cracked through the Hall like a whip, making everyone jump but also to thank God that it was not their own name that Henry was barking. Cromwell turned around guiltily. There was a swollen pause. Anne turned back to look at her husband hopefully; maybe they would not have to dance after all. No such luck. Henry raised his eyebrows at Cromwell and raised a hand, palm up, toward Anne. "You will escort Her Majesty onto the dance floor." He winked. "I realize it's been awhile since you have had a woman, but surely you can drudge up some memories of chivalry from the floor plans of the new wing at Whitehall and the fortification estimates, eh?"

Cromwell flinched visibly and turned on his heel, making his way stiffly toward Anne. Why he had committed himself to an occupation where it was daily occurrence to be lashed in public like this he would never understand. As he approached the dais, Cromwell murmured, "Forgive me, Majesty," and extended his hand deferentially toward Anne, refusing to look her in the face. "My queen," he managed.

"Master Secretary," Anne gulped. She waited for one more long moment, praying for some diversion, but none came so she did the only thing that she could have tolerated: took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and flounced down the stairs past Cromwell's outstretched arm, snubbing his offer to hand her down from the dais. As she felt the back of her gown brush against him dismissively, a tingle ran up her spine – _not from the contact_, she assured herself.

Cromwell unclenched his jaw, with effort, as he straightened and followed her through the parting crowds to the floor. Although his posture was as confident as hers, Cromwell's stomach was in knots and his mind raced as he tried to imagine a way to get through an entire dance without touching his partner. He caught Edward Seymour's eye and rolled his own, as though he was bored, as though he was not at all afraid that he would lose his supper if he had to put his hand on her waist. As if had not been a horrible, horrible irony that Henry had chosen the wording 'since you've _had_ a woman' with reference to Anne.

They came to the middle of the floor, the other pairs of dancers having discreetly shuffled into a circle around them. Cromwell did not realize that he had been watching the tops of Anne's bare shoulder blades until she spun quickly to face him and stood as though they were about to engage in hand-to-hand combat. And then he realized that he had no idea where to look. Anne's face was a mask, regarding him as though she had never met him before. He could not bring himself to look her in the eye, and instead focused on a point over her shoulder, waiting for the music to start. Cromwell wondered vaguely whether he should pretend to be a horrible dancer, as though he did not know every dance that there was to know – just because a man did not perform dances did not mean that he did not know them. He decided that he would have to perform satisfactorily, lest Henry insist that Anne have another go at teaching him.

Just then, Henry clapped his hands once, still reclined on his throne, and called out jovially, "Master Smeaton!"

Somewhere amongst the musicians clustered in one corner of the room, Smeaton made an exaggerated bow. "Your Majesty!"

"Music, man, play some music! I think…" the king paused in thought.

_Please, God, not a volte_, Anne prayed, breathless.

_Christ's sake, Henry, let us have a galliard_, Cromwell urged, nerve-wracked.

"How about a saltarello?" Henry mused to no one in particular, then approved his own idea. "Master Smeaton! A saltarello, if you please!" Both Anne and Cromwell breathed out; it could have been so much worse, although it certainly could have been better as well. Smeaton turned to his fellows and waved his fiddle in the air, then lowered it to his shoulder and poised the bow above it.

The moment between poised and playing stretched an eternity.

As the first twisted notes leapt from Smeaton's fiddle, Anne's anxiety left her as her torso swiveled to the right and she stepped to the left, crossing her right foot over her left and walking a small circle around Cromwell, upon whose face she would not allow her eyes to fall. He stood stock still, waiting for her to arrive back in front of him. They stood facing one another again, as the music died. She dared to glance at his face and saw that he was counting silently to himself, just as she was – he knew the dance too.

At exactly the proper moment, anticipating the music, Cromwell took an abrupt step forward as Anne stepped back to avoid him, her chin raised. Anne's step was smaller than Cromwell's, so that they ended in closer proximity than made either comfortable. There was a pause in the dance. Anne's heart pounded as her eyes fell, for lack of a better destination, on Cromwell's gold chain of office. The image of her fingers curled around the gold links, yanking Cromwell down toward her face, ripped through her mind, and she shook her head minutely to rid herself of it. No sooner had her eyes refocused on the Hall, though, than her thumbs brushed across her palms, trying to remember if there were gashes there from grasping the chain so tightly.

Cromwell watched the apprehension appearing in her face through the glances that he dared to sneak at it. At the sight of Anne's heartbeat picking up, Cromwell began to sweat. The music burst forth again and Anne began her second journey around Cromwell, and then he took two steps forward as she took two back. _Pity you did not run away the other day_, Cromwell thought ironically as he shortened his steps and Anne lengthened hers so that they could put extra distance between their bodies. The second pause was worse than the first; Cromwell wanted to run a hand over his forehead to stop droplets of sweat from appearing, but dared not give himself away, while Anne felt out of breath from staring at Cromwell's chain of office but could not think where else to look. Before Anne made her third circle around Cromwell and he advanced on her for the third time, they were supposed to make their first physical contact. Anne's right hand came in front of her, as did Cromwell's; palms hovered close to one another, but somehow they managed not to touch, and the music struck up again as Anne hurriedly began her third circle around Cromwell. This time he took three steps forward, and Anne nearly skipped backwards, halfway running from him.

Anne cringed visibly as she raised her hand again, as did Cromwell. Palms met. A jolt of heat ran through each respective body; their hands knew each other.

The third pause was the longest; Cromwell counted the moments until it was over, until the music would flourish into the air and the real dance would begin. He had never understood all of this dilly-dallying and the slow facade of seduction. For God's sake, it was a dance. Everyone knew who their partner was and would be for the entirety of the dance. There was no seduction about it. Once the true dance had begun, it would be over quickly, and there would be no pregnant pauses where he could hardly force himself to stand facing her. It was just like Henry to force him into such a tense dance with Anne; then a wave of paranoia washed over him. Did Henry know? Did he suspect? Cromwell almost glanced over his shoulder to see Henry's face.

Palms still pressed, Anne carefully crossed her left foot over her right, and when the fiddle struck up the palms raised above their heads as Anne spun clockwise, her dress flaring and settling around her. The fiddle quieted again, and Anne prepared for the two spins in a row, delivering them as the music punctuated the hall in a slightly longer burst. Two more single twirls were coming – to build dramatic tension, Anne supposed – followed by the final three in a row. Anne felt her cheeks flush with pleasure at delivering every turn perfectly.

As he watched her turn the final two single turns, Cromwell was mesmerized. He had seen her dance and knew that her skills passed excellent, but never had he been this close to her as she did it. Anne made it look so incredibly easy to spin quickly on her toes, transitioning seamlessly from the balls of her feet to her heels and stopping after each abbreviated twirl with perfect control. Her touch against his palm was light, effortless; she may as well have been dancing alone. She clearly did not need to lean against a partner for balance, nor to compensate for over-rotating by pressing against him to stop herself. Most bewitching was her manner; her head did not rotate with quite the same timing as her body, instead lingering on one side, almost as though she was going to glance at a person over her shoulder, and then coming around so quickly that it beat her body in arriving facing forward. Her pink cheeks hinted at a smile – and it was truly a smile, not a smirk. There was nothing seductive about it. It was endearing.

Anne was so thrilled at the dance that she forgot her circumstances and, after the second single turn, glanced up at Cromwell, only to find that he, just like her, was verging on a small smile. She was startled to find him staring at her, and when she launched into the three-turn sequence she glanced up at him after the first turn, and then after the second turn, and nearly lost her footing as she finished the third. She only betrayed herself by a slight pressure on his palm and a frustrated biting of her lower lip.

She glared at no one in particular, answering his unspoken taunts in her mind: _It's all very well for you; men just stand there during the saltarello! I should like to see you try to do that._ Anne seethed, taking a deep breath. But happily, the face-to-face part of the dance was mainly over.

Cromwell removed his palm from hers gratefully and stepped toward her, his shoulder even with hers, standing beside her and facing the opposite direction. The pair circled side-by-side, and it was only at this point in the dance that Cromwell remembered there were other dancers on the floor beside them. Immense relief flooded through him as he realized that not every eye in the Hall was on himself and the queen, although to be honest, probably most of them were. They pulled away from each other and made exaggerated pivots, their opposite shoulders coming back together so that they could circle the opposite direction. Leaving off in the same position in which they had begun, they then made a series of these pivots, the only result of which was a lovely visual image of flying gowns and sailing black velvet as their shoulders alternated coming into contact with one another.

On the fifth series of pivots, Cromwell turned his head carelessly to the side as they pivoted toward one another and he smelled rosewater. The scent assailed him, flooding his mind with memories of that day, of his mouth on her neck and his hands in her hair, ripping her ruffled collar away, and of nestling into his bed linens with her perfume still on his skin. Blinded by the recollections, Cromwell pivoted one time too many, and as Anne went on with the dance, he stepped after her as would a lover seeking some form of acknowledgement from his sweetheart. Startled, Anne glanced back at him, her eyes wide, and Cromwell righted himself, falling into step beside her again. He glared down at her. _Well. Maybe you should wear less perfume_.

They progressed together across the great floor, Anne surprised at Cromwell's agility in the quick, intricate footwork involved. The same steps in reverse were more difficult, but again she was impressed with how well he executed them. She had never considered him someone who would be a skilled dancer; where in the world had he learnt to dance? He had been a soldier and a merchant and a lawyer. Who had taught him the saltarello? Who had shown him the pretty little steps involved, and how to incline his shoulder then he circled a partner, and the exact timing of the steps of pursuit at the beginning of the dance? He was not, for certain, the best male dancer she had ever seen; but for someone who had spent years behind a desk adding up long lists of figures on parchment, he was surprisingly light on his feet.

They came back to their original spot on the floor and split off, each performing their own sequences of steps in a small semi-circle. They met at the other end, pivoted around one another, and set off in reverse. Cromwell noticed that Anne's gown flew less than any other woman's gown did; it must have been heavier and thicker, he reasoned. Her cheeks were verging on red by this point, and Cromwell's nervous sweat was beginning in earnest along his hairline. Neither of them was too warm or exhausted by the dance; the root of their physical symptoms, had anyone cared to observe them closely, was clear through the nervous half-glancing of each toward the throne where the king sat alone, watching – although whether he watched his queen and secretary or made eyes at a pretty blonde somewhere in the shadows, neither was sure.

Another set of pivots, and they would nearly be free.

Cromwell looked down at Anne's hair as her back was turned toward him, and for a moment thought how different the style was from the day when they had… well, when they had. He shook the thought out of his mind. _You should not be thinking of that at all. If you think it is not true, then it is not true. _He managed a half-smile, as though he was enjoying this dance, as he looked over at Henry. He tried to project smugness, conspiracy, in his gaze toward the king, the first time that they had made eye contact since the beginning of this blasted dance. Henry smiled noncommittally; he probably could not have cared less how the dance was going. All that mattered to Henry was that he had gotten Anne out of his presence to dance with another man, and so therefore Henry himself would be free to get out of Anne's presence in order to dance with another woman. Anne turned toward Cromwell, and he turned his back on Henry to progress down the hall one last time with her on his arm.

The stately conclusion of the dance was underway, Anne realized with glee as the laid her forearm uneasily on top of Cromwell's. Their arms were both clothed, but Anne's flesh felt singed at uncomfortable contact with his. She wondered if he felt the same way.

Anne nearly snatched her arm back as she felt Cromwell's knuckle touch the band of her wedding ring, probably unconsciously; he had probably not even noticed the contact. They were making slow, graceful progress down the floor toward their final position for the dance, but Anne suddenly found herself wondering if he was wearing the same type of shirt now that he had been that other afternoon, when her hands had been inside his jacket and her ring had snagged the fabric. In a moment of hysterical self-derision, Anne wondered if she had torn the linen of Cromwell's undershirt and whether she should offer to have a new one made for him. _Well,_ she reasoned, holding back a horrified giggle, _he ripped two buttons from my collar. I should inform him that he owes me a new Venetian ruffle._

He felt her stiffen on his arm, and she did not relax, instead pulling away from him as soon as they had made their way to the blessed final position of the dance. Unfortunately, Anne's willful removal of her body from his did not last, as they were forced to press their right palms together one last time. She took a deep breath, crossed her left foot over her right, and performed her final turn with a flourish. When she brought her head around to face forward, it was to find Cromwell watching her intently, his face blank; Anne sank immediately into the curtsy that ended the dance, her skirts billowing upward before they had even fully finished flying out beside her. Her face upturned, Anne bent at the knee until she reached the point of no return, finally breaking the gaze so that she could bow her head, Cromwell's hand now holding hers at his waist level as he bowed to her, returning the respectful gesture that ended the saltarello.

There was a moment of painful silence, and then spontaneous, enthusiastic applause.

Henry got to his feet, and the applause died immediately. Anne's eyes flicked up in panic, wondering if they had betrayed themselves, wondering if her husband knew, wondering if he was going to rip her hand out of Cromwell's and drown her in the Thames. Cromwell's facial muscles were tense, waiting also for Henry to speak. His back was to the king, but Anne dared not glance around him to see Henry's reaction. They held their poses. Finally, Henry did speak:

"Splendid!" He roared with delighted laughter, applauding, although whether he was applauding for his own clever plan or for the dance was unclear. The court returned to applauding to concur with their king. He continued clapping as he strode off the dais and across the floor to his wife and secretary, a sneering smile on his face.

Anne was losing her balance; her knees and thighs ached. She grasped Cromwell's hand a little tighter as she felt her ankles begin to tremble. _Walk faster, husband_, she begged, half desperate and half irritated, although a tiny part of her mind noticed that Cromwell's arm stiffened in an effort to give her extra support as he felt her lean on him. For Cromwell's part, he wished Henry would walk faster as well; he felt excruciatingly awkward, standing bent at the waist and holding the king's wife's hand in front of a roomful of people whose money he controlled, who would come to his office tomorrow, cap in hand, asking for favours, and who could at any moment catch an inkling that there may have once existed between queen and secretary something slightly deeper than an Italian court dance.

At last, Henry was at her side. "Splendid," he said again, no emotion in his tone. He held out his hand to Anne. She took it with her left hand, and he raised her to her feet; gratefully, when she had regained her balance she let go of Cromwell's fingers, so that she was holding the hand of only one man again. "Does she not dance beautifully?" Henry asked the court, gesturing to Anne. The Hall echoed with affirmation. Anne glowed, taking a shuddering sigh and glancing at Cromwell, who stood smirking as though the saltarello had been his own plan and the least tense four minutes of his life.

"Thank you, husband," Anne beamed, and then, smirking herself, kissed Henry full on the lips as though no breach had ever existed between them. He did not pull away.

Henry's expression was superficial contentment when Anne pulled back, but the King of England would not throw two tantrums in one night. He smiled briefly at her, a fleeting façade, and urged the assembled – and rather stunned – courtiers to "carry on! Carry on, my good subjects!" Then he nodded at his wife and gestured that they would remove themselves to their thrones.

Anne's heart kept hammering in her chest, despite the fact that the dance was over, and that she was leaving the man in black velvet behind on the floor in favour of accompanying the man in the crown back to the thrones that they, as wedded monarchs, rightfully should occupy. She told herself to leave the dance, victorious as she considered it to have been after all, on the floor of the Hall where it had begun. And she did leave it: in step beside Henry, Anne felt the eyes of her courtiers on her and her body tingled with the knowledge that attention in and of itself was power. She told herself that the only goal to envision was a position grander and more secure than the one that she occupied, and that she had every opportunity and capability to attain that. For the first time in months, she felt utterly hopeful, although she realized that Henry's happiness was, as her own optimism was proving lately, entirely fickle.

Despite all this, for some reason Anne could only barely resist looking over her shoulder to see Cromwell's expression after he watched her kiss her husband less than three feet from him.

**UP NEXT: **

A smile lit her usually sour face as she felt his torso cover her bare back, partially yanking at her hair, but she could not have cared less. She sighed, feeling his body respond to her undeniably, feeling his body love her, even if his heart did not. He put his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply at the height of a thrust, and she gasped. "Oh, George," she managed in a whisper, turning her head to nuzzle at his, "why can it not always be like this?"

There was a long moment's pause, and Jane feared he was not going to respond. Why had she even spoken? Why was she always so stupid? Why could she not just keep her mouth shut and enjoy herself? All these years of knowing George, and she could still not tell when he wanted to talk and when he just wanted to fuck? She was pathetic. Little wonder why he could barely stand to speak to her.

Her husband dipped his head toward her and brought it to rest in the crook of her neck, pumping his hips rhythmically behind her all the while. "Would that it could, sweetheart," he hummed into her hair. Ignoring the little twinge in her heart that told her he was about to knife her, Jane's smile widened and she shook her head, eager to feel the friction between herself and her husband in any way. Then, lower, in her ear, she heard: "Ahh… but you are not enough for any man."

Jane's eyes saw black. Her body cooled, the heat of arousal floating out through her skin. Her heart cracked and broke into a million pieces, a stained-glass window dripping with the lost blood of her marriage and womanhood. She barely felt George tense and climax a short while later; he removed himself from her unceremoniously, barely having finished his orgasm, and rolled away onto his back, falling asleep with breathtaking speed.

In hindsight, she wished that he had not responded at all.

... Yes, it's the infamous Lady Rochford! =)


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **THE PRODIGAL IS BACK!

Thesis is loved, written, edited, proofread, footnoted, indexed, supplemented, presented, defended, accepted! HOORAY! Just one paper and one final stand between me and my diploma. I thought to myself, I've not fulfilled my obligations and I miss my story =( I was going to wait and upload a longer chapter later, but I figured this little one would do to remind you all that I am and assure you that I'm alive and will be moving ONWARD! with this story.

Princess Valaina, or Diana, hello! I'm so flattered that you reviewed so many of my chapters, and that you stumbled across the story and were compelled to read the whole thing! (To put it in perspective for everyone, this story is pushing 120 pages in Word, single-spaced.) I'm sorry you had to be sneaky to read chapter 6! That's a bit of a running joke among the few number of my friends who have read this story: "oh, wait until you get to chapter 6." LOL! This is my absolute first time writing fiction. I am a really prolific academic writer but I never write creatively, until the idea for this story came to me last January (2010) and I began to slowly develop a plotline. I might someday like to write historical fiction for real! Lots of people have asked about the Marquess/Earl/Viscount/Baron connection, and that's a little parallel that will be completed later on in the story. I'm glad you enjoyed my narrative of Anne's confusion/conflicted thoughts. I think Elizabeth Cromwell was probably a fine woman, but even if she wasn't, for my purposes she was a doe-eyed sweetheart, if for no other reason than that Cromwell deserves at some point in his life to have had a woman like that. Wolf Hall characterizations aside, Cromwell is awesome. Mark's character will be more developed through the story, as we will see him sort of losing his innocence a little. Hard not to at Henry's court. And I'm glad it was clear that I was making Cromwell fear Anne walking into the room when he heard the high heels clattering on the hallway floor! Sort of that stomach-turning-over-cold-sweat-on-the-back-of-one's-neck feeling, and then shaking relief when it's his maid and not his queen. You are right that Anne is wrong about Minerva – you'll see in this chapter =) I love Nan too! I'm loving developing her character. Bess's crush is a man who plays a huge historical role in the reign of Edward VI and who at this point is a young nobody at Henry's court. I did my thesis on this man, and I've a little bit of an infatuation with him, and I was dying to include him in some way. It's an extremely minor peripheral plotline, but we'll find out who she loves pretty soon. I am pretty taken with Lizzie Seymour too, and I will be developing her character in a fair amount of depth, while leaving Jane alone more, although Jane will have two major scenes, one with Elizabeth and one with Anne. Thomas Wyatt's ending will be historically accurate, unfortunately. =( And the schizo Henry will be of course reappearing throughout the story, making for some great, and as often as possible comical, scenes and interactions. I'm sorry you got interrupted while reading the story and hope you had a chance to bookmark it so you can find your way back and see my subsequent chapters! So great to have you, please review again love!

Dan! Thank you so much. That is such a wonderful compliment. I am very detail-oriented and my goal is to make the reader feel as though they are there in the story with the characters, wearing the fabrics, smelling the food, feeling the heat of the fire. And I love the challenge of making a hybrid between history and the show and my goals. Thank you so much for all of the wonderful words ! =)

SKC83 – I'm so flattered that the story grabbed you like that. And especially pleased to hear I'm handling my character developments well, as I worry about that a lot with such complex personages! I love the line about the letters too =) I love to add little delicate references in and see if they're subtle enough to be noticed but still add to the story without making the prose overdramatic, which I really dislike and which unfortunately happens in a lot of historical fiction (see: "Vengeance is Mine," a novel about Jane Rochford. Actually, don't, it's bad!). I'm SO THRILLED I changed your mind about Cromwell and Anne! For some reason, I see it. I see it in the actors' chemistry – not that the actors themselves were attracted to one another, but I firmly believe that Hirst wrote it to put the idea in the minds of those who were willing to see it. Look at the scenes where they interact. Particularly the argument scenes and the scene where he is watching her at the celebration after KoA's death. There is something in the way Frain cranes his neck and watches Dormer from afar that indicates to me that Cromwell has done that a million times and that it's a habit, and that it's more than just wondering why she's laughing like an insane person. They have chemistry. The historical characters were so alike and so easily turned enemies, but can you just imagine the spark and anger between them as they had fought to be "the" person at Henry's court? This happened often, but usually between people of the same gender, so there's no hope for a romantic/sexual entanglement – well, less so, anyway. But they were both such power players, it was too good an idea to pass up. Anyway, that got a little convoluted (that just shows my frenzied passion for the period lol) but hopefully you get what I'm saying! Hope you like this little new chapter, although the next will be much better. =)

BOLDLIKEBLACK! I was nervous too, lol. But no one noticed. Or did they? No, they didn't. Did they? We'll see. And thank you – the tense situations, stomach twisted, is what draws me into history and why I love political intrigue and am so untempted to dabble in gender / social / cultural history in any meaningful way. I love writing this story and am so glad you like it =)

IronPen, sorry I have been taking forever. Promise that will change with summer time ! The thesis turned out awesomely well, thanks for the encouragement. I hope this new little chapter is to your liking, the next one is better (ahem, Crom) but I wanted to get something up since I have been so neglectful for so long. =) Enjoy!

Nata! Hope you like the little section on Jane Rochford, we'll be seeing a little more from her later in the story. She didn't have a great lot in life. We don't know quite yet what Anne's tendency to see if she made Cromwell jealous means… we'll have to see. What do you think? ;)

ANNA, I miss you so much. Let me know if you're still seeking a beta, I'd be honored. I tried to message you that but FF wouldn't let me log in for some reason? I've never seen Pulp Fiction. I'm glad you loved the dance scene and soaked up all the tension though! Your story is coming along excellently by the way 3

WhenThePawn, Thank you! Such a compliment. Seriously, why didn't Frain get a love affair or anything? The archery scene was good, but that was about the most he got to do. I didn't notice you liked Lizzie Seymour! ;) She'll be developed a good bit, I love her character and I have an unusual angle. She'll be a lot different than yours of course, but she and Cromwell will have a really good scene together, so hopefully you'll like that =) I'm upset that your story is almost through. Write another? Yes?

Pandora, hello, hello – I loved the hair/collars things, since they were so important in the infamous chapter 6. We'll see how you feel about Lord Rochford after this chapter… I know how I feel about him.

Enjoy, everyone =) Review if you would be so kind! Also, WARNING, the M rating is in effect for the latter part of this chapter.

i.

Anne's bare feet padded against the cold stone floor as she drew herself, ghostlike, back and forth across her bedchamber floor. Her nightgown flared out behind her, coming to heel like a scolded child in the marketplace, every time she turned around to begin back in the other direction. Her arms were folded over her chest, and she was gnawing on an errant chunk of cuticle that refused to come quietly from the nail of her left index finger. Her quick, rhythmic, microscopic bites on it suggested that she was not really trying to wrench it from her finger at all.

Her ladies had gone to bed, awhile before, when she had ordered them to. Their fatigue was showing upon their faces. Somewhere along the course of the evening they had lost Mary Shelton, but her elder sister Madge seemed entirely unconcerned. "Mary is her own mistress," she had muttered with a quick eyeroll as she had handed Anne into her bathtub and reached for a vial of concentrated rosewater scent to dribble into the steaming water. Nan, warming drying linens by the fireplace with Bess, plucked at a piece of hair that had worked its way out of her coif, twisting it absentmindedly around one finger in a half-hearted attempt to make herself look as lovely at the end of the evening as she had felt at its onset. Bess was hardly moving, quieter than usual in her gown which was the loudest of any of the ladies'.  
"D'you not worry about her?" Nan murmured, finding a pin to readjust so that she could resurrect the serenity of her hair. "She is so young."

Madge sighed a little. "Of course I do," she turned her back quickly to reach for the queen's soap and washcloth. "But worry or not, she does what she does. She is a good girl, and spirited, and bright. She knows well how to use what she has." She poured some heated strawberry wine into a goblet and handed that to Anne, who had just dunked her head below the water and was now soaking. The queen accepted it, then gestured for Madge to wash her hair.

"We should find her a husband," Anne murmured, then took a sip. The ladies exchanged a look. For all of Anne's kindness toward her ladies, when she began saying things in such a manner that insinuated her ladies were her equals, it meant that she was distracted. _Not again_,Nan thought.

Madge looked sour. "She does not want to marry. She thinks men are worthless, and good for favours and love only, but that they are too fickle to allow into your heart, even if you allow them into your bed."

Anne choked on her wine with laughter, forcing the rest of it down as a few drops escaped to her chin. She hurriedly wiped her chin dry, then set the wine aside. "Fickle? Men? My, my, that child is wise for her years." More uneasy glances were exchanged; Anne had had a bit too much wine tonight, perhaps.  
By the time Anne's hair was finished, the sheets were waiting, and her ladies were looking like battered wildflowers after a storm. When Anne had stepped out of the bathtub and wrapped herself in the hot, dry linen, she realized that sleep was not yet forthcoming. "Ladies, you may go to your beds - I am not for mine yet, and you all look exhausted." It was well past two; the banquet had begun by six.

Elizabeth Seymour, who had been shooting desirous looks at Anne's bed since they had returned to the room, looked apologetic. "I am fine, my lady-"

"I know you are, but I will not be able to sleep for some time yet. It is wiser for you all to go to bed now - provided it is your _own_ bed to which each of you goes." She cocked an eyebrow, rubbing away the pearls of clean water on her arms. "I am joking, of course. You four give me no cause to worry." Others, she did not say, did. Well, no, just one other; the blonde one was carefully studied in staying out of the bed of the man who wanted her. "Truly, I wish it. You all must be well rested for tomorrow. I can see to myself. I shall comb my own hair. Just bring me my shift and you may go."

So now Anne trod back and forth across her floor like a caged animal, her hair combed out long, wet and cold on her back as always, grateful to smell like rosewater instead of heavy food and wine and sweat and court again, but a caged animal nonetheless. She did not feel clean. Those few touches had brought screaming back the memories of sensations that she had endeavoured so heartily over the past two days to forget. She passed the window, then the bed, then pivoted at the wall; she passed the bed, then the window, then spun before she reached the door. Footsteps and biting her finger did not calm her, did not soothe her, did not help her forget or even soften the nerve-wracking guilt and anxiety and awareness of what she had done. She had quieted her conscience and her fears since that afternoon with effort, but the touch of a palm or a forearm was apparently enough to send her hurtling back to this, to melancholy and a pit in her stomach and glancing over her shoulder every few moments, afraid of who might come through the door.

At length, Anne's frustration grew beyond acceptable limits and she blew out one candle on a taper next to her chamber door. She paused, watching the defeated wisp of smoke furl up into the air and die. Then she drew a great breath and blew out the rest of the candles. She smiled as she inhaled the smoke and let the darkness wash over her. The other candles in the room went out quickly, and Anne was left with one candle lit, in a candlestick with a small handle. She picked it up gingerly from her vanity table and picked her way across the cold floor to recline in the windowseat, placing the candle before her and picking up the Bible that lay across from her seat. Twelve hours ago she had sat in this exact spot reading Erasmus in her nightgown. Now she needed to spend some time with God.

But it was not to be; a half hour later, Anne gave up, reluctantly admitting to herself that she was unable to focus on the word of the Lord. Heaving a great sigh, Anne crossed the room yet again to exchange the Bible for another volume, and selected one on mythology - the same one that Nan had suggested bringing outside the previous afternoon, but it had gotten lost in the shuffle. Plucking it from the shelf, Anne skimmed across the floor back to her windowseat, removing her toes from the stone as soon as she could. She located a velvet blanket of some sort and draped it over her knees, placing the book on her lap. But before she had even opened the book, her attention had wandered again.

After another fifteen minutes, Anne admitted to herself that she was engaged in that awful between-consciousness that detained a person's mind without really engaging it; she was staring into space, not thinking, not seeing. But, she consoled herself, not thinking and not seeing was much better than thinking about or seeing the things that could be preoccupying her.

Sighing, Anne flipped the mythology book open with one hand, holding up the candle with the other to see the page headings in the dim light. The pages hummed together while Anne thumbed through them, and the musty book smell that rose from them comforted her. But as ever, she found difficulty in maintaining this sense of comfort and soon the events of the past eight hours came rushing back to confront her.

What was she to do? She set the candle down and pushed her fingers through her wet hair, trying to stop her eyes filling with bewildered tears. She had felt calm and at peace, even nearly herself, all the afternoon and early evening. Then Henry had bade her dance with - put her hands on - that despicable man, and her nerves and peace had all flown the scene. Anne had tried her best to maintain some semblance of cheer throughout the remainder of the banquet, and she fancied that she had succeeded, but inside she was as a broken mirror: shining, glittering, sharp and fragmented. Her insides had been in knots. She was, thankfully, not catapulted back to reliving _every_ nuance and sensation of her lovemaking with Thomas Cromwell, but her hands were halfway between burning and tingling from the physical contact they had had with him during the saltarello. Her face hardened. If only Henry did not always feel the need to be so vile. Why could he not have simply left her alone, if he could not be brought to treat her with respect? And again, bewilderment overtook Anne, for just minutes before forcing Anne to dance with the hated secretary, Henry had demanded before all the court that the Emperor recognize her, herself, as his queen. How could that be other than a positive omen? An indicator, perhaps, of her chances for re-ascension? But then he had embarrassed her. A tear trickled down her cheek when she remembered how humiliated she had been at Henry's confession of her crying. The look on Cromwell's face had been disbelieving, discomfited, and, much to Anne's dismay, interested. He had sneaked a glance at Anne's panicked face before looking away while Henry rambled on about Anne's sorrow over Elizabeth. What had that expression been on his face? Had he been concerned? Empathetic? No - probably just calculating, as ever, the best way to use Henry's loose-lipped anecdote to Cromwell's own advantage.

But, then, Henry had touched her face softly, tracing as he had in years past her jawline. His eyes had lingered on her lips; Anne was not so isolated from her husband that she could not recognize that. Which was why she had kissed him. After that dance. That he had made her do. "God in heaven," Anne muttered, furiously shaking her head and wiping at her eyes. "Where Mary got the idea that men are fickle puzzles me." And then a giggle burst forth. Anne tipped her head back and settled back against her pillows, swiping the last of the salt tears from her eyelashes. "And why am I always talking to myself? Why..." She sighed. "Why can I not just find long-lasting peace?" Shaking her head once more, Anne turned the last few pages to the chapter on Minerva. If anyone could show her the way to peace, it would be this goddess of nature and pastoral harmony. "Minerva, Minerva," Anne whispered absently, searching for this name on the pages before her. "Guide me." Finally, she saw the gilded 'M.' Smiling, Anne held her candle close to the page and skimmed the first few lines, her brow wrinkling in concentration and then confusion. Defeated, she pulled the candle back and let the book flop closed and fall off of her lap. She nudged it with her knee in disgust until it was far enough across the windowseat that it no longer offended her.

Minerva was not the goddess of nature and peace. She was the goddess of war.

Anne felt halfway back to crying, but it was not worth it. _Just a silly mistake, _she told herself. _A foolish error on my part. Nothing more than that. _She thought of retrieving the Bible and having another go at the Lord, but reasoned that she needed to get in bed and at least attempt to rest. Her candle, which had resided on a small table near the windowseat, was burning low anyway. She picked it up one last time as she tumbled out of the windowseat, reluctantly leaving her velvet wrapping behind. Stifling a yawn, Anne stretched her candle-less arm upward and arched her back, trying to ease the tension in the muscles, and a comforting warmth spread through her. Perhaps she _was _tired. She glared at the mythology book one last time for good measure, blaming it for the discomfort that she felt at having identified all day long with a figure who represented strife and struggle rather than comfort and ease. Tipping her head to one side and then the other, Anne finally took one last deep breath and blew out the candle in her hand.

ii.

She laid perfectly still, her arms at her sides and the linen sheet in gentle, draped contact with her naked body. Her entire body was at peace: from toes to fingertips, and other than the quiet rhythm of her breathing, her torso as well, was still and silent. Her hair had been perfectly draped on the pillows behind her, and it still was, the combed-out curls forming a fluffy pillow and a dark blonde shroud for her head and shoulders. Were it not for her face, which was scrunched and twisted in an effort not to cry, Jane Rochford would have been the picture of a serene woman.

For the thousandth time, she laboured to draw breath naturally, to stop her lungs from shuddering with the emotional pain in which she was enveloped. And she succeeded yet again; in fact, Lady Rochford had nearly perfected the art of holding back tears in the decade or so since she had been married to George Boleyn. She hated herself for many reasons – for coming back like a beaten dog to beg for George's love and affection despite all the wrongs he had done to her; for taking out her frustrations on other people, when she knew that it was George who had consistently hurt her; for loving a man who had taken her by force and without gentleness on their wedding night, but never wanted her in the dark now – but the ability to repress her tears, to pretend to be asleep when George was in bed, rather than crying as she desired, and the fact that she was so studied at this skill, was the epitome of her hatred for herself. For all she desired and aspired to be, she was clearly a failure, not only as a wife but as a woman.

She had come back from the banquet just a little early, had stripped naked and arranged herself in bed, eagerly anticipating George's arrival. Propped up slightly on pillows, Jane had fluffed her hair and run her fingers through it, taken a deep breath, and waited. She knew he would come to bed soon tonight. And come to bed soon he had – but he had not even glanced at her. He had entered the room, shucked his clothing, and flopped into their bed, pulling the coverings over himself without really disturbing her side at all. Maybe he thought she was asleep. But he had not even looked to see. She could have been bleeding to death and he would not have noticed. Her shock – although it was certainly not the first time that she had been ignored by her husband – had silenced any protest that she may have been tempted to make, and silent she had remained, and still did. On a whim, her lips parted, formed the first sound of his name, and stopped. It would be worthless to whisper to him in the dark. She could tell that he was not sleeping, which meant that he could tell that she was not sleeping. How she wished they were both sleeping, their bodies twined together, his nose in her hair and his fingers on her belly, maybe with a baby inside. The oft-imagined picture of marital and motherly bliss nearly brought her tears forth, for she knew that that sort of happiness would never be hers. Biting down hard on her lip, Jane Rochford forced the tears back, longing to slap herself in the face or twist her fingers into her hair as she often did when she was frustrated with herself. She bade the images of tiny fingers and toes, of sweet little smiles and arms that would reach out for her and cries that would turn to coos at her presence go. She swallowed hard, thinking of a child that would be a perfect cross between her and George, a child that would make right all the wrongs that had passed between them. How could George not love her when he sat beside her on her labor bed, their newborn in his arms, aware of the horrors she had travailed to bring their heir into this world? He would look at her and see that she lived for him, that she wanted nothing more than to please. He would love her. He would.

Jane turned over on her side, her combed, fluffed hair trailing across the pillow behind her. She slid across the feather mattress toward George, who was still not asleep. The sensation of her bare skin moving over the linen heightened Jane's ability to act sensually, and when she reached George, she ran her hand over his chest as though it was the most natural thing she had ever done. He did not reach for her; instead, she felt his chest muscles stiffen a little, as though he would jerk away from her. Not sufficiently discouraged, Jane hooked her calf between his knees and shifted so that she lay partly on top of him. Despite her warmth and the swell of her chest pressed against his, George was still unresponsive to his wife, so she began pressing kisses to his skin, starting on his shoulder and traveling up his neck. When she reached his jawbone, George's arm stirred, and he trailed a single finger up her bare back, pushing her hair out of the way. Encouraged, Jane twisted and brought her whole body to rest on top of his, finally circling his mouth with her kisses. She spread her legs over him, hoping, waiting, but he made no move to join with her. His other hand, though, came up to the opposite side of her back, so that both hands rested on her rib cage. He had not opened his eyes to look at her.

When she kissed him full on the lips, there was at first no response. A painfully long moment of awkward half-kissing passed, during which Jane forced herself not to pull back, but mercifully, George's lips pressed against hers tentatively. As though he was trying a sip of soup, trying to decide whether the rest of the bowl was worth having.

Apparently, she was worth having. George paused, then kissed her back firmly, his tongue parting her lips and delving into her mouth. She purred against him, arching her back a little and sliding one hand into his hair. She tried to nudge one of his hands up toward her breasts, but as usual George had a plan of his own, which also as usual did not include pleasuring his wife overmuch. Never happy underneath Jane, George rolled her easily backwards and faced her, both of them on their sides, as he kissed her harder and deeper. Jane could not have cared less about being turned on her side. She twined her arms around his neck and threw one thigh back over George's stacked hips, bringing him between her legs to tease him. As their bare parts touched, George all but growled at his wife, digging his fingers into her scalp. She could feel him trying to resist, trying to prolong his stamina before he entered her. "Be careful," he whispered, genuine warning in his gravelly voice.

Jane smirked. This was a game they played – the only husband-and-wife game that they ever really played. It was sick to think about. He would resist her, resist her, resist her; she would seduce him, seduce him, seduce him; and finally, when he could hold back no longer, she would win him over and he would take her. At least that was how Jane preferred to think of it. In reality, it was more that she begged her own husband to sleep with her, and when she 'won him over,' she suspected that often he was simply exhausted of her advances and needed a way to make her leave him alone. But she liked teasing, kissing, feeling wanted. These heated moments between them were the only times that Jane could fool herself into thinking they had a real marriage. So, she whispered back coquettishly: "Or what?"

"Or…" he trailed off as she kissed him and snaked her leg tighter over him, running her heel up his back and letting him feel her arousal. She wondered if her arousal might someday please him. "Sweetheart…"

She loved when he called her sweetheart. She wished there could be an ounce of actual warmth in the word. He said it almost ironically when he used it to address her. "Sweetheart?" she prompted. "Or?" She arched her lower back, knowing that he was close enough to feel that she was ready for him. "You are not frightening me, husband," she teased.

A fistful of her hair was tugged as he kissed her deeply. "As you wish." With a quick hand on her shoulder, George turned his wife again, this time onto her front, and threw himself on top of her from behind. He never wanted to make love to her from any other direction from behind. She had ceased arguing about it years ago, and it was far from a chore at this point, although on rougher nights it did remind her of their first coupling, on which occasions tears would prick her eyelids and she would shove her face into a pillow to suppress the memories. Tonight, however, she spread her legs eagerly once she felt him over her, pulling a pillow underneath her chest and propping herself on her elbows. He eased into her gently but quickly, and after an initial moment where he sighed and enjoyed the feeling of being inside her, George began to ride his wife like she was a dog. Something in Jane wanted to hate it, but in all honesty, she loved it. She loved when he was inside her, when he was connected with her, when he had to appreciate her. She fell into the rhythm with him, giving little moans back whenever George grunted in pleasure, moving with his body and returning the energy that he gave her, hoping to enhance the experience. Sometimes, on a rare moment, she felt as though George could love her… not always, not even half the time, but sometimes. And those moments were what she lived for.

She orgasmed often with George – she supposed that it was not difficult for him to have this effect on her. She loved him, and by God, her husband was a dashing man. The thought of his member inside her was enough to entice her body, and the excitement of their games before he would have her were often enough to bring her halfway there. Usually, all that it took for Jane to climax was a little time. Despite George's indifference toward her, she knew he loved the satisfaction that he could make his wife moan his name without lifting a finger. When they climaxed simultaneously, the connection between them was at its strongest. Sometimes he would fall asleep entangled with her after. On those nights, Jane prayed the world would end before the sun rose so that she and George could die together, enveloped in one another. She would pray God to let it happen again the next time. But even when it did not… she lived for these moments, these moments where they were pressed together, naked, as a man and wife should be. Tonight held promise: aroused as Jane had been before, she felt her body growing hotter and more enflamed all the while as her husband moved behind her. Jane wriggled her hips teasingly, and in response, knowing what she wanted, George leant forward and draped himself over her, supporting his weight on one hand and thrusting deeper into her. He wrapped an arm around her flat, probably barren, midsection. Jane rolled her lower body to tease him, again, and again, loving how it hitched his breath when she did it the proper way. He kissed her neck spontaneously, letting his unnecessarily wetted tongue find the spots on her neck that he would never admit he knew about and deliberately targeted. She wondered for a moment whether he would ever admit to anyone that he was this way when they made love.

A true smile lit Jane's usually sour face as she felt his torso cover her bare back, partially yanking at her hair, but she could not have cared less. She sighed, feeling his body respond to her undeniably, feeling his body love her, even if his heart did not. When he buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply at the height of a thrust, she gasped. "Oh, George," she managed in a whisper, turning her head to nuzzle at his, "why can it not always be like this?"

There was a long moment's pause, and Jane feared he was not going to respond. Why had she even spoken? Why was she always so stupid? Why could she not just keep her mouth shut and enjoy herself? All these years of knowing George, and she could still not tell when he wanted to talk and when he just wanted to fuck? She was pathetic. Little wonder why he could barely stand to speak to her.

Her husband dipped his head toward her and brought it to rest in the crook of her neck, pumping his hips rhythmically behind her all the while. "Would that it could, sweetheart," he hummed into her hair. Ignoring the little twinge in her heart that told her he was about to knife her, Jane's smile widened and she shook her head, eager to get her fill of the friction between herself and her husband. Then, lower, in her ear, she heard: "Ahh… but you are not enough for any man."

Jane's eyes saw black. Her body cooled, the heat of arousal floating out through her skin. Her heart cracked and broke into a million pieces, a stained-glass window dripping with the lost blood of her marriage and womanhood. She barely felt George tense and climax a short while later; he removed himself from her unceremoniously, barely having finished his orgasm, and rolled away onto his back, falling asleep with breathtaking speed.

In hindsight, she wished that he had not responded at all.

After a few minutes, Jane admitted to herself that she could not suppress her tears tonight, and she carefully slid out of bed, picking her way over the floor and down a short hallway off their bedchamber, entering a little wardrobe room and easing the heavy door closed behind her. Calmly she crossed the floor to the wall opposite the door, leant backward against the gowns and jackets that hung there, and half-gasped, half-sobbed as hot tears began to fall from her eyes. A burning pit formed in her stomach, grew, and twisted inside her, reaching into her throat and down through her abdomen and threatening to rip her in two. She tried to control her verbal expressions, tried not to make those hideous half-moan, half-wails that she often made when she sobbed hard, and let her back slide down the wall as she curled up in a ball on the floor. Jane tucked her face toward her knees, hating how wet her nightshift was getting, and how cold and slimy it would be from her tears and the liquid that ran from her nose. The corners around her nostrils would be raw, she knew, from wiping them. God, she hated to weep.

Jane grabbed hold of herself and tried to sniffle the rest of her tears and pain into quiet. She succeeded at first, but the thought of returning to her cold, lonely side of their bed caused a tiny whimper to escape from her face, which scrunched back up in an effort to hold back her tears. Suddenly, she was angry with herself. Bringing one hand up, she quickly smacked herself across her right cheek. "Stop it," she whispered to herself. "Stop sniveling." The sting calmed her, and she tried the other cheek too. A few more quick slaps, on alternating sides of her face, brought warmth back to her skin and somehow soothed her mental agony. "Stop it, stop it, stop it, you fool," she sneered to no one, her words hissing away in the dark. She wiped her tears away, clearing her rosy cheekbones, and hauled herself to her feet. She waited until she was sure that the sobs would not start up again, then left the wardrobe and tiptoed back toward her bed. She never wanted to wake George during the night – he would not like it, and in any event, he always had to rise with the sun, to see to Anne's affairs. Jane scowled at George's sleeping form, turned on his side, facing away from her. _Anne's business. Always Anne's business. Never anyone but Anne. If only he cared half as much for me._

Jane lifted the bed coverings and slipped between them, tensing her muscles against the peculiar late spring chill. George stirred in his sleep, and she nearly burst with joy, thinking he was about to reach for her. But it was probably a reaction to a dream – of Anne's business, no doubt – rather than any notice of his wife in his bed. Looking at George, Jane fell in love with him all over again: the strong line of his jaw, the soft waves of his hair, his broad shoulders. A soft smile graced her lips, and she scooted across the bed to him, placing her head behind his on the pillow and draping an arm over his midsection. She sought his fingers to hold, but when she could not find them, she simply folded herself around him, waiting for his breathing to catch in recognition or a muscle to stir. There was no response.

**UP NEXT: **

Cromwell picked up the quill and began muttering to himself. "Getting rid of her should take… a month. Maybe less. But then there's the problem of what to _do_ with her. Probably a nunnery. She would like France. We'll keep her in England." Henry would never want Anne Boleyn flitting around some French convent, telling tales of England and making even more of a name for herself than she already had. In England, they could keep an eye on her. Tuck her in some quiet chantry in the countryside and just see to it that she was not allowed past the gates, and that the institution remained open. "The one abbey still standing in England in two years' time, and it will be the one where Anne Boleyn is an abbess. That should ruin Roman Catholicism for everyone. Two birds, indeed."

Hope you all enjoyed! =)


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **Hello, readers =) I hope June is off to as beautiful a start for you all as it is for me!

Pandora, I'm glad my Cromwell makes you laugh – hopefully this chapter will too. It's all Cromwell! George Boleyn won't play too much of a role here as he is pretty sidelined in the series and I don't have much in the way of a solid opinion of him in general, but for my purposes he'll be an icky figure. Jane Rochford will appear a few more times as well, and you can guess at my characterization of her, although as you said I will attempt in an indirect way to lend her some justification for her actions. Anne might be going a bit crazy, but… who isn't in this story? They will all have their moments. Anne drives a lot of people crazy for a lot of reasons. =) Enjoy!

Ironpen, you're very welcome for chapter 13! Hope this one is also worth the wait =) I could not agree more with you on Jane Rochford, that's how I hope to portray her in my literature although her true nature is anyone's guess. I hope this chapter gives you your Cromwell fix – great as they are, Anne/Cromwell scenes can't be the meat of the story or they'll become less electric and delicious, and the characters are so intricate that including them both in every chapter would be exhausting. I do hope you understand =) And, good questions – DO they still hate each other? I think so… but maybe not. What do I know? But I will say: this story is FAR from over. =)

BLB, I'm glad to be back =) Now that summer comes mayhap I will be able to update more consistently! Hope you enjoy this new chapter, and I promise that the Rochford marriage will not be the story's biggest tragedy =) =)

ANNA! Your story is coming along beautifully, I love reading it =) As for mine, I hope you're satisfied with Cromwell's recreation so far, as I can't reveal one way or another whether either of our main characters will be getting any more exercise of that sort in the rest of the story…

Piratically Insane, or Emma, hello! I'm so glad you love the story =) I love getting new reviewers who enjoy it so much! I'm even more glad that you describe it as believable as that's what I'm striving for: a realistic, detailed, delicious story without being overly intricate. I LOVE my Cromwell, I'm so glad you do too – and of course, who isn't a James Frain devotee? Who could NOT be? ;) Thank you for the congratulations, and I hope you enjoy this next chapter, please let me know how your exams went! =)

Diana, hello again! Thank you for the congratulations, it feels great to be all done! I'm glad that social functions and Bieber fever didn't keep you from reading last chapter ;) I'm so glad that chapter 12 reached you on such an anxiety-inducing level! No, I don't know how to dance the saltarello, in fact my description was highly inaccurate on purpose. I stole some ideas from the Charles Brandon/Margaret Tudor dance scene in season 1 (YouTube: .com/watch?v=ckYABlBjQrQ), and for the rest used my imagination (I am a classically trained ballerina and I love dancing, so I imagine Anne as being very light on her feet and intricate, as Natalie Dormer is in all her dance scenes on the show). I'm THRILLED to hear that you could feel the tension coming through the words =) My Henry is coming along pretty well I think, my point is that he's wavering between madness and what he feels to be a strangely calm peace of mind, and he's still obsessed with Anne but in a different way, and now he resents the obsession as well as her but still can't help but give in to it now and again. I can't give away who ends up doing what with whom – I guess you'll just have to keep reading =) Hope you enjoy this chapter! PS, never apologize for a long review!

Raquel Beth, WELCOME! I hope this chapter is to your liking, please let me know how you feel about it! =)

Overnight, 21-22 April 1536

The page stared back at Cromwell quizzically. He had sat down nearly an hour before and had planned to do a reasonable amount of work and then retire to bed, but the minutes had ticked by and he was accomplishing nothing. Well, that was not entirely true. He had a beautiful miniature sketch of a rose coming along in one margin of the parchment. Cromwell scratched irritably at the nape of his neck, where his collar just fell short of his curls, adding some detail to a petal of the rose. "Maybe a dewdrop," he mused, chewing on one lip.

Light but definite high-heeled footsteps approached him down the hall, and his heart stopped just for a moment before he recognized them. "Come in," he called before Mrs. Lockton hit the door.

"Good evening, sir," the woman bustled, smoothing her hair. "I wondered when you think you might be going to bed." They never tired of this game: she would ask him when he would go to bed, he would tell her a time, and almost invariably he would turn out to be wrong, but she always managed to have a hot bath ready for him at the right moment.

Cromwell dropped his quill and rubbed his hand over his forehead, which was creased from thinking too much. About twisted things. He sighed. "I am spent," he admitted. "I should say a quarter hour or so." He would produce something tonight – he had to. He had been conspicuously less productive in the past few days.

"Yes, sir." Mrs. Lockton bobbed her head and backed out the door.

Cromwell picked up the quill and began muttering to himself. "Getting rid of her should take… a month. Maybe less. But then there's the problem of what to _do_ with her. Probably a nunnery. She would like France. We'll keep her in England." Henry would never want Anne Boleyn flitting around some French convent, telling tales of England and making even more of a name for herself than she already had. In England, they could keep an eye on her. Tuck her in some quiet chantry in the countryside and just see to it that she was not allowed past the gates, and that the institution remained open. "The one abbey still standing in England in two years' time, and it will be the one where Anne Boleyn is an abbess. That should ruin Catholicism for everyone. Two birds, indeed." The quill was moving, but the plans were not on his paper. The rose was growing a stem. The stem was long and slender, and ever so elegant. It curved in all the right places. "Of course…" Cromwell smirked as he finished the stem and shaded it. "Of course, the abbey will have to be inspected from time to time. Just to make sure that it is still operating with propriety. Such inspections might require the presence of the king's chief secretary." He added another petal, thinking of the high colour in Anne's cheeks when he looked at her tonight. He hated her for being so transparent. Did she not understand the danger? If anyone were ever to suspect… She had to realize. Of course she did. He stopped himself ridiculing her; his cheeks had flushed too. He tried to picture her in a nun's habit and chuckled. She could wear black, true, and she could cover herself, true; it was just the notion of Anne Boleyn as a bride of Christ that tickled the senses. Closing his eyes, Cromwell forced himself to conjure the image of Anne in a stiff black gown, rosary around her neck, that same flushed pink on her white face as she bowed to him in two years' time when he came to inspect the abbey. He would pay her respect, of course, as the abbess. She might invite him to dine with her sisters, as though they were her ladies-in-waiting. He had no doubt, actually, that they would be like her ladies-in-waiting. Nan Saville could probably even be convinced to follow Anne there. He imagined what it would be like to look at her in a capacity other than Queen of England. It had been so long since she had not been Queen, in practice if not in name.

"My Lord," she would say softly, sinking into a curtsy, her heavy black linens pooling around her. How he would love to hear that from her lips. She who barely deigned to acknowledge him as her husband's chief adviser. She would call him _My Lord_. "Welcome to our home." Oh, it would be divine. She would have to spend the evening catering to him, worrying that he would dissolve her little household, as she was worrying now. He wondered if there would ever pass between them a secret look, or a touch on the hand. He wondered if she would ever dare touch his hand. She would not be Queen of England anymore. She would not be married. She would be free. Well, free to touch his hand. He did not know whether he would seize her wrist and call her a harlot and order the dissolution right then and there, or have her against the bookshelves in the library and promise to visit again soon.

But Henry might not want her alive. What would he do then? He could hardly have her executed, and on what charges anyway? Other than screech and not have a son, what crime had she ever committed? Other than causing the break with Rome – well, that was more a miracle. Maybe she should be an abbess. Maybe she could turn things around. No, Henry could not be rid of her. Maybe she would die of natural causes… well, that was unlikely too. She was too stubborn to die, just like Katherine. Maybe Henry would want her poisoned. Who would be able to do that? Cromwell imagined sprinkling something into a goblet of wine and having it sent to the royal table, giving Henry a nod so that he knew not to drink. A page would have to be sacrificed for bringing poisoned goblets. That was the price of happiness for a king, it seemed. An innocent page, an innocent queen.

He imagined Anne's reddened lips curving around the bottom rim of the goblet, taking a sip or two, smiling at her ladies and trying to look as though she was having a pleasant evening. Shooting a worried look at her husband, maybe trying to engage him in conversation while Henry nodded peremptorily and overtly let his eyes roam elsewhere. Suddenly she would bring a hand to the top of her bodice, pressing in on her sternum as her heart began to gallop, fever breaking out against her cheeks like a rash and her breath coming in heaving bellows. She would try to stand up, try to seek help, and she would fall. It would be too late for help then – Cromwell would choose a merciful poison. Anne would only suffer for a minute or two, no more. She would be wearing a beautiful gown, of course, and her hair would cushion her head as she shivered and gasped on the dais, Nan Saville hysterical behind her, praying and barking at everyone to save the Queen. Cromwell would make sure he was nearby, on the pretense of having crossed the room to speak with the King, and he would make his way over to Anne in surprise, as they all would. He would have warned Henry to make sure he said good-bye to his wife, so there would be less talk about Henry having gotten rid of her, but he knew that Henry would never be able to watch Anne die. He would move away on the pretext of finding help and Anne would be alone with her ladies. Cromwell, though, could see through what he started. He would pick his way across the dais, gently moving Madge Shelton and Bess Dormer out of the way, probably encounter Lizzie Seymour shooting arrows at her family, silently demanding whether they were responsible for this. Cromwell would kneel beside Anne, call her "Your Majesty," and ask if she was in pain. He would assure her that help was on the way. He would look at her feverish blue eyes – he would have to make sure he got there before they rolled back in her head – and maybe he would even be able to touch her hand. After all, she would barely be the Queen of England then; she would barely be more than a corpse. Yes, he might touch her fingers gently, he would say a prayer for her soul, and he would look into her eyes and ask her if there was anything he could do for her. She would know. He had no doubt that she would know. She was too much a queen to accuse him when she would be aware that she had a dozen breaths left to take in this world, but she would fix him with a good hard stare that, he had no doubt, would make his stomach turn over, but she would only be able to hold it for a moment before her shaking and gasping overcame her. Then he would take her hand… it would be nice to hold her hand, he thought. Inadvertently he imagined how their palms had pressed together, and how, before, their fingers had intertwined. That was a world away. But he imagined her dying beside him, about to be a world away herself, and he thought it would be nice to hold her hand then. He would squeeze it, in apology, an apology that he would feel deeply. It would be a great loss for Anne Boleyn to die, he thought. But he would do it, and somehow, he knew that because he had looked her in the eyes and taken her trembling hand, she would be able to forgive him. She would understand. He would wait, and he had no doubt that he would feel a ghost of a squeeze in return. Just a ghost, though, because then she would be gone. They would bury her in a dress of spun gold with great pomp and ceremony – Henry would spare no expense to thank the woman for dying and getting out of the way. Her funeral would be a grand affair. Her legacy would be unforgettable. Cromwell would see to it that she was taken care of.

Cromwell realized he had been drawing without paying any heed. He inspected his rose and found that there were angry sharp thorns along its lovely stem now.

"I'll have to ask Henry which of his pages is the most troublesome," Cromwell mused, trying to decide if he would remember that without writing it down. He heard footsteps again, but it was not Mrs. Lockton. These footsteps were heavier, and more ambling, but they sounded excited. He wished he could hope it was Gregory, but his son was away at Cambridge and probably weighed less than Mrs. Lockton anyway. Then more footsteps – Mrs. Lockton had apparently heard the first set and was now trying to catch the person before they got to Cromwell's own office, unguarded in the middle of the night. He heard her voice, muffled, and an amiable one responding to her. A male's voice, to be certain, but whose? Mrs. Lockton did not sound alarmed. Cromwell's other hand found its way to the desk drawer where he kept a butcher's knife anyway.

"Sir!" he heard his maid, annoyed, huffing. "You've a visitor!"

"Enter, Mrs. Lockton."

She poked her head around the office door and announced without much enthusiasm: "His Grace, the Duke of Suffolk."

Brandon entered the room all bluster and swagger, a lock of his wavy hair dipping down across one eye. He stood before Cromwell expectantly, as though he was waiting for Cromwell to rise and bow. As though that would ever happen. Cromwell had sat at his desk and ignored the queen, yet Brandon continued to think that if he did things the proper way he would glean a physical display of respect from Cromwell. Instead, the secretary picked up his quill again – he would hardly need a butcher's knife for the Duke – and dipped it, showing his boredom. "Good evening, Your Grace."

"Cromwell." Brandon grinned. He looked boyish, too much so for Cromwell's comfort. From the way that the Duke swayed back and forth on his feet, though, Cromwell guessed that he had had one goblet too many tonight. "How goes it?"

"What's that, Your Grace?" _Running the country?_

Brandon rocked forward from his heels to his toes, exaggeratedly, and walked comfortably across the room. "All of this business you do," he indicated with a grandiose sweep of one balloon sleeve Cromwell's papers. Luckily the Duke was too glazed to examine what business Cromwell was about at this very moment, else he may have noticed the leggy rose in the margin of the otherwise bare parchment. "All these papers," Brandon went on. "Always working on something. How goes that for you?"

Cromwell refrained from rolling his eyes, but just barely. "My business is fine, Your Grace, and yours?"

"Better when that bitch is gone," Brandon chuckled, "but fine also. I wanted to tell you how my conversation went with His Majesty."

_As though I did not hear it from three different people who were stationed nearby_. "By all means."

Brushing off what Cromwell was sure was annoyance that the secretary was not more eager to hear about Brandon's handiwork, the Duke saw himself into a chair, pulling it up to the front of Cromwell's desk conspiratorially. "His Majesty was stunned… and, intrigued." He waited for Cromwell's reaction, then hastily added, "He seemed to take the matter into his heart and mind. And I trust we shall see results of those processes."

"What reaction?" Cromwell asked without comment.

Brandon tried to hide the flicker of annoyance that crossed his handsome face. "None," he admitted quietly. "There was no immediate outward reaction to speak of."

"I see." Cromwell made himself appear to be mulling this over. "Well, if one learns anything in the service of His Majesty," the secretary spoke slowly as he dipped his quill in an inkwell and shook off the excess, trying to select phrasing that would not insult the increasingly insultable king, "it is that his hand perpetually remains close to his chest. Despite his lack of immediate reaction, such a divulgence from his best friend-" he knew how the Duke would appreciate that "-will surely, as you said, be taken into his heart and mind. Would you say," Cromwell pressed the tip of the pen to a scrap of parchment, aware that Brandon would not be paying attention to whether Cromwell was actually working on anything, and looked back up. "Would you say that the king was angry, or surprised, or had he no time to show any outward emotion?" The issue was irrelevant, but Suffolk needed to feel as though he had done something important. It was not the Duke's first taste of political intrigue or manipulation of his best friend the king, to be sure, but Cromwell needed to tread lightly, to keep Brandon under his thumb, to be able to bait and control him without much work, over the coming weeks.

Brandon twisted his mouth and brow, screwing up his countenance in thought. Cromwell wanted to caution him not to hurt himself. "His Majesty was taken aback," Suffolk finally said. "He looked as though he had never imagined that the queen would do something like that… even though I have always known her to be a whore, and communicated as much to His-"

"Yes, yes," Cromwell waved a hand, cutting Brandon off mid-rant. He really did not need to be thinking about the prospect of Anne engaging in adultery. An imperceptible shudder ran through Cromwell's body. He shoved his chair back from his desk, where suddenly he could see himself taking her a few days before, could see it as clearly as though it was happening again and again in front of him, her fingers and her eyes and her breath engulfing him, and the smell of her perfume – God, was it still on his skin? No, it was not. It could not be. _Stop it. You are going mad._ Cromwell got to his feet, trying to steady his face so that Brandon would not see the regret, the lust, the memories that Cromwell was so afraid would be readable there. "It is good that the king did not expect to hear that from your lips – or from anyone's. The novelty of the concept will ensure that His Majesty gives it full attention," Cromwell eyed Brandon conspiratorially, "and it will certainly leave an impression." The secretary was barely listening to himself. He did not want to think about the fact that he was giving Anne up for the same crime he had committed. Suppose… suppose she was confronted by Henry, and confessed her adultery with Cromwell? Cromwell would deny it and denounce her as a witch, he knew he would do it, could do it if the moment came. This was not the first time that he would drag down an innocent person to save his own career, and it would surely not be the last, and he did not like the twinge that he felt in his heart, simultaneous with a little twisting of his stomach, when he thought about Anne being dragged down for adulteries she did not commit when the only adultery that she had committed was with Cromwell himself. And yet at the same time, there was a sweetness on his tongue when he imagined being the one to escort Anne to the Tower, to lock her behind a thick wooden door with a heavy bolt and unforgiving iron bars across all of the paneless windows. The thought of throwing Anne, in one of her priceless beautiful gowns, into a dank, filthy, ill-lit room in the Tower was delicious. He would make a pretty bow to her and turn to go, leaving her wide-eyed and desperate but no doubt stubbornly silent in that room so unfit for a queen. She would never cry in front of him. He knew it. But the look of abandonment, of defeat, on her lovely face would be only a trifle less pleasing. Over his shoulder, he would glance at her as she watched him walk away from her like a man sated walks away from a maiden who has too quickly given herself to him, and he would give her a smirk that would rival her own. If he were the devil, he might even wink at her, but even he was not that cruel. The subtle raising of one corner of his mouth would be enough. She would be able to read the silent message that would be so plainly on his face: _I win._

Suffolk was waiting expectantly. "Yes, yes, I agree." He fidgeted, probably wondering whether his wife had bathed or whether she had stayed in her banqueting gown so Brandon could rip it off her when he got back to his rooms. Brandon seemed the type of man who would like to take a woman with her clothing still partially on – although, apparently Cromwell could be that sort of man too. Cromwell clenched his teeth in anger at himself. He needed to stop thinking this way at once. "What is our next move, then, Cromwell?"

Cromwell scratched at his chin as though pondering. The truth was, there was nothing to do for now but wait, but Suffolk would never be satisfied with that. "Well, Your Grace, until we can gauge His Majesty's desires we will be unable to act in any overt way…" It annoyed Cromwell that he had to keep up this "we" business. "For the time being, I think it politic that you, in particular, keep yourself aware of Her Majesty's behavior with any men with whom she interacts. Perhaps Her Grace the Duchess could be of some assistance. You know how women gossip." Cromwell gave a little smile, as though he and the Duke were drinking together and comparing the bodies of the tavern wenches. As though they were jousting partners. "Mayhap someone has heard that Her Majesty is on very comfortable grounds with this or that gentleman, and we could use that to our advantage in the coming weeks. The investigation is at such a stage that it is impossible to say what bounds Her Majesty's adultery may or may not know. Now is the time to gather as much information as possible, and you are in prime position to oversee that." _Because my dozens of sets of eyes and ears at court could not handle that themselves,_ Cromwell thought, and barely refrained from rolling his eyes. He reminded himself for what seemed like the dozenth time that the Duke needed to be made to feel important. Furthermore, since Cromwell himself almost never interacted with the Queen in public, the Duke's "investigation" would be sure to exclude any consideration of the secretary himself.

Suffolk's eyes gleamed. "My wife will love that. She hates Her Majesty."

"She mustn't act thus," Cromwell warned. "You and the Duchess must continue to act with circumspection, and the Duchess especially must be aware of the secrecy of what she is doing."

The Duke bristled. "You needn't lecture me, Cromwell. I've been at this court for a full two decades more than have you. My wife will not hinder the process. She is an intelligent and competent woman."

_A child who knows nothing of the world._ "I did not mean to impugn Her Grace, of course, Your Grace. I was merely suggesting that you remind of her of danger. Perhaps you should not share all the details of the plan with her – perhaps simply suggest what she should do. It is your choice, of course."

"I will see to it." Suffolk was still annoyed, his strong jaw set, and Cromwell could tell he was clenching his teeth from the movement he saw in Suffolk's temples. "I will be in touch with you regarding any information," the Duke added. Suffolk seemed to want to end the conference feeling as though he was in control, as though he was not standing in the office of a man of much inferior stature like a beggar with a cap in his hand, as though he was the one giving orders to Cromwell.

"Please do. Oh, and if His Majesty mentions anything, anything at all, with regard to the information that you divulged to him, or anything related, let me know straightaway. It could change the course of our entire campaign." _There. "Our" entire campaign. That should ease His Grace's perturbation._

"Done." Suffolk grinned and got to his feet. _Yes, dance for me, puppet_, Cromwell thought with amusement. How easy it was with this man. "Two pleasant conversations with you in one day, Cromwell. Who could have imagined? What a golden world."

Cromwell did his best to grin back. "Indeed, Your Grace." He extended his hand first this time, to defer to Suffolk's ego. "I wish you a joyous evening."

"Granted." Suffolk raised his eyebrows quickly and briefly closed his eyes, likely imagining his Duchess in some state of undress, waiting for him in their apartments. His eagerness to get back to her was more than visible on his face. "Good evening to you, Cromwell." Suffolk turned his back as quickly as possible, showing Cromwell that he owed him no respect, and hurried from the office.

Heaving a great sigh, Cromwell let the boyish smile drain from his face and slouched back into his desk chair. He dipped his quill again and hunched over his parchment, his fingertips near the bottom of the quill and his face near the desk, and began adding miniscule cracks to the rose he had been drawing all evening. The petals on a rose cracked so delicately, so daintily, that the casual observer would not even notice the cracks at first. They would not notice the tiny cracks on the edges of the petals until the wind or rain or some other outside force took hold of the cracks and ripped the petal completely asunder, damaging it beyond repair and ruining the beauty and simplicity of what had once been. Cromwell added just a few tiny cracks to his petals, shading them precisely and wondering when he would rip the petals apart.

A few minutes of silence were all that Cromwell got before he heard high heels clattering in his hallway. His heart only jumped a little this time, and then he realized that it was Mrs. Lockton approaching. The secretary began chewing on the inside of his mouth, irked by the internal lurching and what he recognized as an adrenaline rush in the brief moment that he had imagined the footsteps belonged to someone else. He needed to shake this feeling out of himself. Or have someone else shake it out of him. The ink had dried on the tip of the quill, but Cromwell kept scratching at the parchment anyway, using the flakes of the dried ink to add gray detail to the black outline of the rose.

Mrs. Lockton peeked around the door before letting herself into his office. "Sir, d'you think you will be retiring soon?"

"Yes," he muttered without looking up, turning the tip of the quill on its side and dragging it across the parchment to achieve the serrated, beautiful petals that he imagined on his rose. "You may go ahead and draw my bath. I will be ready in a few minutes." He had not lifted his eyes to her once, and Mrs. Lockton knew well enough how to treat her employer when he acted thus, so she backed out of the room as unobtrusively as possible and eased the door shut behind her. Cromwell drew a great breath and sent a strong puff of air over his parchment, scattering flakes of dried ink over the other documents on his desk. He shook the parchment off, inspected it, and then laid it on the desk and took his fingers to one edge of it. Holding the sheet fast to the desk with the fingertips of one hand, Cromwell began to tear into the parchment with the other hand, creating a split in the parchment just above the top of the rose. When he had torn far enough horizontally, the secretary carefully changed directions and ripped a vertical line in the parchment, and then separated the bottom of the rose from the rest of the page, and it stood alone. In his trembling right hand, Cromwell held it, his drawing of a perfect, elegant, breathtaking rose that was cracking and splintering at the edges, ready to disintegrate at any moment. The only thing that he had achieved this whole evening. It was beautiful. He folded it in half, the slender stem willingly obeying his fingers, and tucked it safely into a dossier in his desk drawer, closing the drawer softly.

He slid down in his chair, tipping his head backward until it found the top of his chair and resting it there, trying to ease the tension in his neck. His eyes closed. Immediately, it was there. The rose, the long slim stem, the delicate leaves spreading timidly like a thin shoulder on each side, like a hanging sleeve worked in Venetian cloth-of-gold and so heavily embroidered that the rose could hardly bear to move in it, let alone dance, but the rose would. The petals formed in his mind, the flower itself so impenetrable that he could barely tell what it was, let alone what it was plotting, thinking, imagining, feeling…

It was not the rose, it was her. It was that soft, lilting voice, that hard, grating, shrilling, bitching voice that he could not seem to banish of late. _"You know,"_ she had once said brashly in a room full of courtiers, _"I sometimes wish that all Spaniards were at the bottom of the sea."_

_"Master Cromwell, we both know that it is you and I, and not His Majesty, who has brought me here,"_ she had smirked up at him on the eve of her coronation, standing in her beautiful white gown, her belly full of Elizabeth. _"And I hope you trust in my everlasting gratitude for that."_

He remembered her exhausted but exalted face, lit by the moon, that night soon after her daughter was born, as her eyes pleaded with him in the windowseat to assure her that everything would be all right. _"The king's disappointment… I fear it will lessen his love for me."_

_"So is it true you've given your private rooms here to the Seymours?" _Her haughty, accusing face swiveled in the midst of her stiff-ruffled collar to turn eyes burning with ice-blue rage on him.

"_You ought to be careful, or I will have you cropped at the neck."_ He had hardly known a woman could snarl like that. Perhaps Anne was more feline than woman.

She seemed more fantasy than reality when her gasping lips dragged themselves unwillingly from his, her hands on his chest to propel herself from him, and breathed, _"What… what are we doing?"_

Beautiful, goddess-like, as she lounged on the palace lawn with her ladies in a simple white dress this afternoon, while he glimpsed her through the bushes and lost his breath for a moment, long enough for her to sense him and hold him in paralysis until she turned away completely, which finally enabled him to do the same and to flee the scene to trap himself once more behind this damned desk with the painful knowledge that the palace, the court, the air he breathed, belonged to her, and not to him. He could not escape her. He closed his eyes and he could hardly think of anything else, anything more than ornate knots of hair and dangling earrings, bare white shoulders, puffed-out skirts as she spun, the way one could glimpse her ankles if one looked carefully when she hurried up or down a flight or stairs – she had tripped once coming down the back stairs at Greenwich and thus always picked up her skirts on stairways, despite her direction of coming. Her hair would bob down over her shoulders as she looked at the uneven stone steps before her if she was trotting down the stairs in a hurry, particularly in her higher shoes, and when she got to the bottom she would stop and throw her heavy curls back again, square her shoulders, and look up with a queen's eyes again, ready to appraise and confront the room before her, ready to face its hostility, if indeed it was hostile. Which it was. A fair amount of the time. Her eyes spoke everything there was to say about her. Never had he seen such eyes, such expressive, communicative, skilled eyes, eyes that could tell him when she could not say that she wanted to scream at him, or slap him, or kill him, or-

Cromwell's eyes flew open as he shook himself out of his reverie. This had to stop. It had happened more than a few times since the other afternoon. He would let his mind wander, and wander it would, straight into a forest of thoughts of a woman about whom he had absolutely no right, nor even inclination for that matter, to be thinking. It had to stop immediately. Closing his eyes again, cautiously, Cromwell pictured a pure white sheet. This was a method he had used since childhood: whenever he needed to clear his mind, he would shut his eyes and focus on seeing a clean, unmarred white sheet. It would be difficult at first, and he would experience a lot of interference, different bright colors and dark splotches ruining the purity of the sheet, and he would not be able to smooth out the wrinkles, but the harder he focused on _white, white, white_, the more times he thought it and focused on it, the purer the sheet became until there was nothing in his mind but whiteness, nothing on the sheet but whiteness, nothing in the world but whiteness. And there, in that whiteness, Thomas Cromwell could find calm.

As he was repeating _white, white_, and smoothing out the shadowy corners of the sheet in his mind, the slick, thirsty noise of water against a porcelain tub burst into Cromwell's thoughts. Usually he hardly heard the pages in the next room as they prepared his bath, as they were very quiet and the tub itself made no noise when they set it down. He supposed that he was usually too involved with his work to hear it, but tonight the sound of the water crashed into his mind as though someone was pouring it on his head. He could see the pages in his mind's eye, in the next room, pouring the water into the white tub – a white tub, at least, if he could not have his white sheet after all – but of course his mind was not on his pages for more than a split second. In a big white bathtub, the same size as his, a raven-haired rose would lounge back against the porcelain, sipping wine from a goblet, the top of her head wet and slick and her fistfuls of hair floating, fluffy as a pillow, under the surface of the water, covering her shoulders and her chest and-

The secretary wiped both hands over his eyes, trying to rub the image of the queen in her bathtub out of his mind, and a strangled cry escaped his lips. Cradling his tortured head in his hands, Cromwell whispered to himself like a man possessed: "White, white, white, Jesus Christ, white, for the love of God…"

Jerking upright, Cromwell yanked the right drawer of his desk open and scrabbled through the leather dossier that he found there, his fingers seeking his rose. "I will put a stop to this madness, I cannot endure it, I cannot… I cannot, I simply cannot endure it," he murmured to himself, flipping through the documents there, trying to remember where exactly he had tucked it. When it fell from between two sheets of parchment, Cromwell snatched up his drawing and ripped it to pieces, leaving the tattered scraps on his desktop like dead soldiers scattered across a battlefield in the pale of Calais. His head fell into his hands again, his elbows on top of the desk, and he squeezed his eyes shut to avoid looking at the ink on the pieces of parchment. He did not want to face the rose he had created and ruined. "Jesus Christ have mercy on me," he begged in a broken voice, although he was not sure for what he was asking mercy. "I'm sorry," he offered, just as pathetically. He heard more water in the next room, this time water on water as the pages filled the basin slowly with the contents of steaming jugs, and he felt his lungs closing as though he was trapped under the water and could not surface.

On his feet in an instant, trying to distract himself from having a clear mind susceptible to imagining things he should not be imagining, Cromwell began pacing around his office, pretending to be impatient for his bath. He would not imagine her. He would not. _I will not._

"Sir?" Mrs .Lockton called carefully, giving a gentle knock on the door that joined his bedroom to the anteroom adjacent to his office.

"Just a moment," he responded, trying to make his voice sound calm. He faced the door as though he had to put on a good face for his maid, as though she would ever challenge him. As though anyone but he himself would challenge him. "Jesus Christ," he rasped to himself once more, turning on his heel and storming across the room away from his maid and his pages and his bath, not sure where he was going. Or at least, he told himself he was not sure where he was going. In actuality, he knew what he was doing even as he did it, probably before, and his long strides across the stone floor were not many before he reached the alcove opposite his clerks' workdesks. He grabbed a stool from one such desk and dragged it with him, all but throwing it under the little window set off at the end of the alcove and climbing onto its seat to assume an awkward half-standing, half-leaning position so that he could look out the window. He craned his neck as far to the left as he could, pressing his forehead against the glass window pane, his eyes searching for that spot in the dark.

He could see her bedchamber from here.

Well, not her _bed_chamber. For shame. The enormous window to her bedchamber, where her windowseat was. He could see that window from here, if he craned his neck and leaned forward like this.

Not that he had ever looked.

He would not think on that. He thought on nothing. Finally, his mind was blank. He trained his eyes on that spot in the dark, and found the soft glow of a single flame, a handheld candle if he had to guess, as it flitted around in the dark, not constantly, but occasionally. He had no idea how long he stood there. Mrs. Lockton had a policy that she would only call him once for his bath in a short spell. She had called him once. She left him alone now. Left him alone to watch the gold ray of heart-choking terror that was this one flickering candle, the stick of which he knew to be guided by the woman with eyes like the eyes of no other mortal woman. He closed his eyes slowly, not caring as he collapsed further against the glass, his nose uncomfortably pressed to the pane, his breath fogging his window. He should have it cleaned tomorrow. Would that he could wipe his mind clear as easily. Would that he could spend all eternity watching the singular glow of that flame as it moved unassumingly around the windowseat. Would that he could sit in the windowseat. "Anne," his mouth breathed, or barely breathed, the word not really audible even to him.

The flame jerked, and Cromwell almost jumped back, as though he had been caught. For a brief, horrifying moment he thought that she had seen him, but he knew that she couldn't. It was silly, he scolded himself, to even worry about that. She could not see him. Even if she knew exactly where to look, and even if he had a candle, and even if it were daylight, she could not see him.

Not that he had ever looked. In the daylight. Or at all, for that matter.

Feeling an ugly realization begin to close in on his mind, Cromwell made to turn away from the window, to dismount from his perch and go to his bathtub, when the candlelight rose slowly and he saw her outline. Silhouetted from the side, Cromwell could see his queen in a white nightgown, outfitted as a cherub, it seemed, standing what must be a breath from the windowseat and facing the glass. She stretched her arms out to both sides, the candle in her right hand, the left side of her body lit with less gold light than the right. She turned her face from one side to the other, tipping it back and forth slowly, probably stretching her neck as she was her arms. Her dark hair tumbled down her back and a little of it had spilled over one shoulder, dragging across the neckline of her white nightgown that he guessed was probably silk. Cromwell could not look away from her, despite his fear that she would see him, even though he knew that she couldn't, not that he had ever looked.

Suddenly, without warning, the window went dark.

She was gone.

Cromwell's heart and stomach lurched in unison, as did his body, just the slightest bit, as he pressed himself closer to the glass, his chest crushed painfully against the stone wall. The word "wait" almost came out of his mouth, but he stopped it and gulped it back down, taking a deep breath and trying to stop himself from sliding into the strange sort of obsessive hysteria toward which he felt himself falling. Defeated, the secretary slumped forward and let his body slacken against the wall, afraid he would push the stool out from underneath himself and fall, but at the same time unconcerned. He raked a hand through his hair, wondering how many gray strands this whole mess was going to cause him. Wondering how many it might cause her. Hers would not have time to form, he reminded himself. She would be thrown into a dungeon, or an abbey – not that they were that different – or disposed of somehow, and there would be a new queen, a blonde one, one whose window he would have absolutely no interest in watching. And then perhaps he would make visits to the abbey. Annual visits. Semi-annual. Daily. "Fuck's sake," Cromwell growled at himself, teeth clenched. "_Stop it._"

One foot found the ground, and the other roughly kicked the stool away from him, as though it was the fault of the chair that he was suffering from this disgusting affliction. For good measure, he kicked the stone wall behind him and stalked back across the floor, past his pages' workdesks and his own desk with the scraps of his rose on it, and threw open the door to his antechamber. In his bedroom ahead, he could see the bathtub waiting for him, steam still rising from the surface of the water where he would lounge, alone, the only raven hair in the room his own. Cromwell glanced over his shoulder at the window in the alcove, at the wounded stool kicked aside like a dog, and felt nothing but burning anger. He slammed his office door behind him.

**UP NEXT: **

"Do you think she is suspicious?" The words shot across the clear air between them and punctured Cromwell's heart. _Suspicious? No. Never._

"Her Majesty is certainly aware," the secretary tiptoed around the words that would upset the king, "that there is some… instability to her position. She is an intuitive and intense-minded woman," he added hastily, "and it is only natural that she would have such thoughts."

He watched Henry turn over the thought in his mind. "Intuitive," the king nodded, a little smirk turning up the corners of his mouth. "Intense. Yes, she is." His smile looked cruel. "Passionate, too." He glanced sidelong at his secretary.

Cromwell's mouth went dry. Did he know? _Of course not. Don't be ridiculous._ "Is that so, Majesty?" he asked noncommittally.

Henry looked back down at his chessboard, running the pad of his index finger over the tip of the queen piece. "Oh, for certain." The king plucked the queen up and turned it over and over in his hand with quick, light movements as he crossed the room, then drummed it on the tabletop. "Makes for very exciting… well, you know." Henry raised his eyebrows quickly at Cromwell, one side of his mouth twitching back up in that annoying smirk. Cromwell's stomach lurched again. _Keep calm._

"I see." A slow nod. Could he be imagining this? Could he really be hearing this?

"Could be a shame, you know…" Henry mused as he took long, slow steps along the floor, trailing the queen piece on the table as he moved. "Never know what you're getting, taking a virgin to wife. I got lucky with Anne. Truth be told, Thomas, from the very first time it was like shooting stars. She just… somehow, she just drove me wild, without even knowing me as a lover. Instinctual, I suppose. For all the flaws that woman has, her… intuition, as you said, her passion, lend her a power of pleasing that I did not expect, that most men would kill to have in their wife. That is one thing I do not want to let go. I got lucky with Anne," he repeated, plunking the queen piece on the table. He then flipped it in the air and let it bounce and come to rest on the table before looking at Cromwell. "With Lady Jane… so pure and innocent, who knows? Who. Knows." His tone was searching.

Cromwell had no idea what he was supposed to say to that. Was he really supposed to advise the king on these matters too? At length, he felt he must say something. "Well, Your Majesty, I am a firm believer that true love is the deciding factor in such matters, and the real and unadulterated love between yourself and the Lady Seymour-"

"I want to fuck her one last time."

Henry cut him off mid-sentence, the shock value that the king intended so effective that Cromwell literally froze in the middle of forming his word and remained thus, his jaw half-open, his face slack. He tried not to let the horror, guilt, understanding show on his face. "Majesty, I…" His mouth opened, closed, opened. He was inexplicably angry at Henry, angry that he could perceive Anne as nothing more than a pair of spread legs for Henry's enjoyment, angry that he could use such a creature for such superficial pleasures. Oh, the irony – as though Cromwell himself had a deeper, more meaningful relationship with her, or with any woman for that matter. Was this protectiveness that he felt? What should he say? Finally, he had to do something he rarely did in front of the king: let the truth out. "I know not what to say, sire. I've no response to that." He tried to look only lost and earnest, and not the slightest bit angry or jealous at the prospect of the king enjoying his own lawful wedded wife.

Henry probably had no idea of the expression on Cromwell's face. He was lost in his own world, staring off into space, his fingers lightly drumming the tabletop as he probably imagined the things he wanted to do to his wife before he sent her on her way. Cromwell felt his stomach clench, and he swore he was going to be sick, but he forced it back down, swearing silently that he would find some way, some method, to help Anne, to make up to her what he was helping do to her, what he was about to enable Henry to do to her, to use her and throw her out like a whore. Cromwell averted his eyes from his king. He could not look at him. He was disgusted by him.

The king eventually wrapped up his self-indulgent reverie, took a deep breath, and looked back at Cromwell, a knowing smile on his face. For a moment Cromwell feared the king might wink at him, but it did not happen. Henry shrugged. "Nothing _to_ say, my lord." He snatched up the queen piece from the tabletop where it lay on its side, inspected it, got lost for a moment in another fantasy, and finally bit down on the piece. This time Henry did wink at his secretary. "You know the rules. King takes queen."

Please review if you would be so kind! Thank you all =)


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: **Hi everyone! Apologies as always for taking SO long to update. In this chapter I have tried a new approach for part of it – some present-tense, a la Wolf Hall (if you haven't read it, by God stop reading this and go get a copy immediately; seriously, best historical fiction EVER), just a feature I am trying out for a minor side-plot that we encounter here. In the present-tense section, the writing is meant to be a little sluggish and hazy, and also a little more choppy, a little less grammatically impeccable, in order to match the circumstances of what's going on – it's almost like a flashback, but not really. Anyway, I hope you love this new chapter, and as always, I would love it if you would leave me a review! PS, I'm sorry the teaser for the next chapter is so long but I want to pique your interest ; )

ArrrrghhAWasp, hello, welcome! Thank you for the compliments – this is my first try at creative writing and I am loving it! I'm also really pleased to hear that you laugh occasionally while reading it – that's my goal! I like irony and dry humour and want to keep my readers engaged. I hope you like this new chapter!

BLB, no, no, no! Stick with me here, please! Look, there's some fun fluffy stuff right here in this chapter! You'll like it. And the story is going to take some lovely twists and turns, so buckle up. ; )

Diana, hi, I hope you are well dear. I like the Cromwell-going-a-little-mad dynamic, and there will of course be more episodes of it, but in the meantime our secretary has to keep himself together, yes? You have a wonderful imagination to imagine that, I do the same exact thing. The whole Henry-Anne relationship is going to cause Crom some grief, for sure. And yes, I used to be a ballerina, but I was injured last spring so I have been off pointe for a little over a year. I miss it : (

IronPen – yes, Henry's a bit of a monster sometimes. And a lot in this story. This period in time sort of predisposes a characterization of him to that. And yes, Crom is very confused about his thoughts on Anne, and frustrated by his confusion. I hope you like this chapter!

Hi Pandora! No, no laughter last chapter, but I think this one might earn me a chuckle. And yes, Anne does fascinate men – there will be more of that, and not just with Crom!

Raquel Beth, there will be TONS more Anne/Cromwell, including in the next chapter (16)! See the preview for the next installment for a quick teaser. Thank you for the compliment on my writing!

Anna! Your story is coming along so beautifully, as always. EVERYONE READ 'A LAND FOR LADIES' BY ANNA TAURE! No, my poor Cromwell can't get rid of Anne, and I LOVE how you notice the wavering between Anne and a flower as the symbolism of the rose. My Cromwell is all about self control, and it's going to get harder and harder for him to harness himself. And Thomas might just be a little jealous. ; )

Bouquet! Yes, Henry does want to but we'll see what happens! Thank you so much for your kind words on my prose, I really appreciate it. Enjoy and let me know what you think of this chapter!

22 April 1536

i.

_He is making his way toward her through the throng of people, sidestepping a puddle of cloth-of-gold-embroidered velvet here, avoiding tramping someone's satin slipper there, his focus always on his target. His eyes gleam, green-brown in the torchlight, hungry for her already. He smiles to himself as he watches her raise her goblet to her smiling lips and take a sip of wine. He thinks what different activities those lips will undertake before he gives them rest tonight._

_ She feels his approach and, knowing his goal before he even makes his presence known, lets her hair glide over one shoulder in a way that she knows is becoming. The lets her goblet linger before her lips, one side of her mouth turning upward warmly as she stands watching the dance, fully aware that he is watching her and beginning to ache for her already. As she takes a small mouthful of wine, she closes her eyes indulgently, breathes in, knowing how this will pique his interest. Knowing what images this will put into his already imagining mind._

_ By the time he reaches her, he feels half-drunk with lust and wants to throw her on the floor and take her right there. But she is a lady, not an animal, and he supposedly a gentleman. Instead he makes what he knows to be an overly pretty bow, with exceptional flourish, and with grace that would draw envy from the greatest romancer in the world, he offers her his hand, his eyes already dancing, his mouth beseeching her to do so with him._

_ Once she has allowed her feigned startled expression to evaporate, her widened eyes and slightly parted lips to transform into the blushing picture of a flattered woman, she pleads her lack of polish in the art. Her hand, perfectly controlled, flutters up at once to meet his as though of its own desire, independent from her body. Her sudden shyness at the thought of dancing in this room full of courtiers deepens the pinkness on her cheeks, and her hand scuttles, defeated, back to her body. She presses it against her bodice, against the narrowest curve of her waist, watching with satisfaction as his gentlemanly eyes follow it and linger there, knowing what he is imagining while his gentlemanly voice assures her that her skills are unquestionably sufficient. She lowers her eyes demurely, then glances up at him through her eyelashes, her smile growing. Her hand finds its way back to his, and she lays her smaller fingers in his palm, nods assent._

_ His stomach twists with the thrill of victory, albeit a small, incremental, initial victory. He takes the wine goblet from her other hand and places it on the tray of a serving maid who weaves through the crowd past them at that very moment, as well as if it had been planned. He tightens his hand around hers, gives her what he knows to be his most charming smile, and pulls her through the throng toward the dance floor. They find their place at the outskirts of the arranged pairs and when the dance begins, he is relieved that she is in fact as good a dancer as he expected she would be, and not the subpar one that she tried to convince him he was. She is a good actress, he realizes._

_ He is a wonderful dancer, but she knew this already. As he lifts her and twirls her, reaches for her and offers her his hand again and again, she feels his confidence growing. One hand lingers a little too long on her lower back; a fingertip trails down her bare arm instead of traveling to her hand through the air. He braces her close to him, close enough to smell the wine he has had already, the fine Italian fragrance that he wears on his neck and in his hair, and the way that these two scents complement each other. His hand on the back of her structured bodice curves her torso toward his, making an intimate moment of a public exhibition-style court dance. Or at least, attempting to make an intimate moment. Were she more of a fool it may have taken._

_ He feels her in his arms, her body pliant under his touch, and he breathes her in. She smells like a woman, and a very young, supple woman at that. That is what he needs at the moment, a sweet-smelling, soft, lovely young woman. Well, one of those would do at any moment, but he is in particular need of one at this moment. She cannot fail to read the message in his gaze, and although he cannot gauge with equal clarity her sentiment, he senses that they are of one mind._

_ She stops herself from rolling her eyes as she realizes that he is not so adroit at reading a woman's body language. She has stiffened and pulled away slightly in the dance, yet he thinks that because she is dancing with him, she is his for the taking. She chuckles inwardly. Predictably, he does not notice._

_ The partners face opposite directions, arms linked, and with a flourish they twirl round each other, detach arms, and re-link their elbows on the other side. He reaches out for her as she turns and runs his hand brazenly across her lower abdomen, near the foot of her bodice._

_She does not expect this boldness, and she glances over at him, only to find that his head is bent toward her, nose nearly grazing her hair. _May as well make love in public_, she thinks. She lets out a giggle, which seems to shock him, as it is not a lust-ridden, self-indulgent, seductive giggle, but rather a harsh, quick exhalation of laughter. _From such a quiet maiden_? she sees him asking himself, genuinely confused. She keeps the smirk on her face and finally speaks. "Think you, really, that I am such an easy conquest, my lord?"_

_He nearly double-takes at the bareness of the words. His tongue fumbles in his mouth. Words, usually his forte, escape him. "I…" He looks at her face as he stumbles on with the dance, noting that she has not missed a step. He sees something he did not notice before: smugness. Was it there before? He clears his throat, falling back into step beside her. "I know not of what you speak, my lady."_

"_You just placed your hand on me in a manner that suggests you do know of what I speak, sir."_

"_My hand?" he chuckles. He holds it up for her inspection. "You see, madam, my hand has a mind of its own. It is drawn to the most beautiful things in the world – expensive fabrics, priceless jewels, and unworldly lovely women. What remedy?" He gives a shrug, dropping his hand and recapturing hers._

_This time she lets him see her rolling eyes. "If these things were to elude you, my lord, your hands would be at a loss utterly." With that, she pulls her hand away._

_His heart flutters a little. He will not lose her. "My lady-" But when he turns to follow her, she is smiling. Smirking, in fact. Her smirk reminds him of that belonging to someone else. It both disgusts and enraptures him. And in that moment he knows that he simply must have her, for many reasons that are obvious and even more about which he will not allow himself to muse. He sees that she is willing to play his game. She probably plays it rather well – at least, he is willing to find out._

_So, she lets him hand her goblet after goblet of wine, and she matches what he drinks without difficulty, although he has had much already tonight and she, none. She lets him lead her out to the dance and draw her away into the crowd at will, allowing him to feel as though he is flattering and entrancing her by alternately showing her off and bringing her close. She does not protest any more when his hand lingers on her waist or the bare skin of her lower arm. She hides her private smirking and glances up at him from under her eyelashes as he becomes more and more intoxicated, knowing that he will take this as a sign of victory for himself. She pretends to be as infatuated with him as he might wish or imagine her to be._

_He sees victory in his sights at the way she is gazing up at him, her cheeks flushed from the dance and drink. Oh, how she is trying to hide it. Foolish girl. Experimentally, he runs one fingertip up the side of her waist, from the foot of her bodice to just below her ribcage. She bites her lip and shivers a little. She is desperate for his touch. He will not make her wait._

_At the sensation of one brazen fingertip trailing along her stomacher, she tenses and bites back a sneer. Has she not made clear the fact that he does not need these measures, that they are doing nothing for him? She wonders why, after she has demonstrated her lack of receptiveness to gestures of courtly love, he only heaps them on more heavily. She is as happy to make a memorable evening as is he, but all this public cavorting will do nothing for her image, despite the shoulder-claps and lines of verse that he will glean from it. Thankfully he somehow perceives her frustration as lovestruck pining, and gives her a heavy-lidded glance as he pulls her once again away from the other pairs in the dance. They disappear into the crowd, her light train floating behind her as she hurries through the bodies with him._

_Once they have cleared the forest of courtiers, he pulls her close, whispering in her ear about how he never knew he could be so frightened by a woman._

_She sighs a little; he does not notice. "How so, my lord?" she asks, tiredly, boredly._

"_Your beauty and grace… I feel so tempted by it, but to give my heart to you is to risk impalement," he simpers, his voice thick as honey, in her ear. He inhales the scent of her hair, fearful for a moment. He is relieved. She is not wearing perfume. He rubs his nose against her scalp, where her hair is pulled back on the sides and top._

_She wonders if he is mussing her chignon. "Beauty is a gentle thing, sir," she offers blandly. They have reached the terrace, a wide expanse of cobbled stone that stretches to border a considerable portion of the royal gardens. Above them, the sky is indigo dotted with diamond-like stars; before them, the perfectly manicured lawn sprawls like emerald velvet. She breathes in the cool night air._

_He watches her profile, watches her collarbones rise as she inhales, eyelids sliding closed, head tipping backward. "Beauty is not always gentle, my lady," he assures her. "Some beauty is harsh. Some is demanding. Some is impossible to please, making a man always pursue it, yet impossible to capture. Some beauty poisons you and never lets you go. Some beauty ignores you even as it ensnares you."_

_She has kept her eyes closed throughout his self-indulgent reverie, and she is fully aware that he is talking about someone else, someone in particular. She probably knows who it is. She could not care less. She opens her eyes. He is not looking at her, but staring out into space, his jaw set with what she recognizes as stubbornness. "Not all beauty is like that."_

_He sniffles. "Perhaps not." He does not look at her, but instead casts his gaze downward, and she sees a tear slip from his eye._

_Unexpectedly, she is touched by him. This romancer of women, this lustful plunderer, is completely unafraid to exhibit his undying love for a lady who clearly refuses to love him back. It is endearing. It is also repulsive, but in an endearing way. He has already wiped the tear away, disguising it as a scratching of the nose. Her tone is soft as she turns her head toward him. "You think that all beauty might be thus?"_

_The turn of the head is not the same. Relief floods him. A shrug. "No," he admits. "I know not. It often does seem so. Or perhaps that is the most powerful kind of beauty, and it takes over one's world such that one can barely fathom, let alone see, anything else."_

_She chuckles, a sweet giggle. "You should write poetry."_

_He smiles back. "I shall take it under consideration, my lady." He looks at her now and sees that she is not what he had hoped to find tonight, but perhaps she is even better. "Perhaps I shall write a series about the different types of beauty."_

"_But you are not sure what they are!" He is actually, she realizes, much more enjoyable when not trying to romance her._

_Clever ladies please him, and this one does so singularly because her wit is refreshing. "I am not. True. Perhaps then just speculation on the purported versions, since I am uncertain whether they exist." He rakes a hand through his hair._

_She cocks her head encouragingly. "They exist, my lord." She reaches for him. "Come. I shall show you."_

_Their lips touch and his heart nearly leaps out of his chest, excitement and triumph and comfort overwhelming him. He wants to eat her alive, but then he wants to touch her as gently as one might touch the torn wing of a butterfly. She seems, strangely, as eager and as careful as he. His hands come up to find her cheekbones, her jaw, his palms memorizing the curves and angles of her face so that he can remember them later. They slide down her neck, not as long and graceful as it could be, but then she is very slight. They find her shoulders, again more petite than they could be, and trail down her long, slim arms. His fingers intertwine with hers._

_She realizes that they are in direct view of the banqueting courtiers, and steps back, pulling him with her, to seek a shadowy area in order for them to continue their … conversation. In between kisses, they half-stumble, half-glide toward a dark-shaded section of the terrace, away from the open air, sheltered by the outer wall of the palace. He presses her against the stone gently, his mouth surprisingly adroit despite all the wine he has had. She feels a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach: excitement. Lust. Joy. Victory. All the words and gestures of the evening blur together, all the hand placements during the dance and the quick, fleeting glances at one another, meld into the feeling of their mouths crushed together. Minutes pass, long minutes, long sections of minutes. At one point, his hands slide up the back of her bodice, and a yeomen in Tudor livery whom neither of them had noticed clears his throat awkwardly from a few yards away where he is posted._

"_Apologies, my good man," he grins, giving a little bow to the servant._

"_Not at all," the servant nods back. "Good to see some people enjoying themselves this evening." The red doublet moves away discreetly, but the time has come to relocate themselves anyway. A servant is one thing. A royal or ducal admonishment would do neither of them good._

_Again, he pulls on her hand, this time through the only door to the terrace that is shaded dark gray, where the tapers set up around the Great Hall do not reach. Like two bejeweled snakes they slither about the outer perimeter of the banquet, avoiding the royal dais, avoiding the dancers, avoiding anyone who might need or want to speak to either of them. They escape the Hall without detection. He presses her to him in the corridor, a triumphant kiss for both of them. At the sound of a close footstep they check, her heart in her throat, and his panicked eyes flick about. _

"_No one."_

"_For certain?"_

"_You know me, mistress; I am not certain of anything." He takes her hand, kisses it, and then breaks into a run. A grin spreads across her face, and she grabs the front of her gown in one hand, the other still in his, and rushes along in his wake. She all but skims down the hall after him, so light is her step. They run through the quiet palace, the sounds of Mark Smeaton's fiddle growing ever softer behind them and the air growing cooler, as virtually all of the bodies in the building are crammed into the Great Hall. She knows where they are going, and she is as keen on it as he is. The next thing she knows, he is bolting his inner bedchamber door behind them. The lights are out. Out of courtesy, he begins searching for a match._

"_No," she says, panting lightly from the sprint, as she leans against the heavy wooden door._

"_No?" his eyebrows ask her, raising. The moonlight spilling in the large window on the other side of the bed illuminates half of his face._

"_I know what you look like, and you I." She smiles._

"_Clothed," he allows._

_She laughs again, a real laugh this time, harsh and genuinely delighted. "Touche." She pushes herself off of the door and begins across the chamber floor toward him. "The rest in time, sir."_

_Four long strides and he meets her halfway, near the foot of the bed, and their mouths meet again. The darkness of the chamber makes time stand still, and she has no idea of how long they spend in each other's arms like this before his mouth ventures downward and she begins tugging at his jacket. His bare chest is against hers as he wraps his arms around her, muttering about how complicated feminine garments are, his fingers tangling in the laces of her new gown. She pulls the bow open and her stomacher comes off, along with her underskirts, to rest in a puddle at her feet. His hands dig into her hair, wanting it loose, as his lips find her shoulders and she strips the rest of his clothing from his lower body. Nerves fill her stomach, as they always do in moments like these, and she prays for them to get in the bed before she can change her mind. As if reading her thoughts, he finishes with her hair, leaving it mostly ruined of its former coif and tousled beyond recognition, and wraps his arms around her waist, lifting her out of the tangle of clothes at her feet. He lays her on his bed, then plucks the high heel from each foot and tosses it with a flourish behind him. She laughs again at that, thinking what good fortune brought them together this evening. Finally his fingertips travel up her leg from her foot, finding the ribbons at the top of her golden stockings, and he peels them down. Taking a moment to gaze at her form, naked as a newborn in the moonlight, he is then on top of her. Just as their movements during the dance faded into a haze during their time on the terrace, now the world around them slows to a stop as they lay intertwined, not caring if they are noisy while everyone else dances all night._

_The bedclothes twist around them. Lips, tongues, hands, fingers all live in harmony. Eagerness robs both of them of their prior artfulness. She tastes like sweat. He tastes like a man, which is to say, he tastes like sweat also. He is attentive, and she is demanding, surprisingly so, but when the ultimate moment comes she wraps her arms around him as though she had read his mind and knew his innermost hopes. With a groan he takes her, and the bedchamber becomes the place where he could live forever or die this moment. He is shaking, kissing her, desperate for her, for someone, and when he hears her whisper his name he loses his control over himself, bursting into euphoria, collapsing on top of her, determined to crush her little frame with his considerably heavier body, not caring if she dies because she has made him the happiest man on earth tonight, and for tonight everything is perfect, and he does not want to face what tomorrow will bring. She is content to lie underneath him, it seems, and he buries his face in that hair, kisses her cheekbone and whispers, "Goodnight, my love."_

ii.

The sun brought unwelcome things, foremostly a conference with the king. The summons had been waiting for Cromwell when he awoke from a troubled sleep. There were dark circles under his eyes, which looked deadened. "Excellent," he commented on his own appearance in the mirror. He turned and stormed toward his desk. "_Barber_!" he shouted. As though a shave delivered in record timing would improve him. "I'm in to see the king straight away. Make it quick," he told the man. Mrs. Lockton had already bustled in with his breakfast, which she sat on his desk before him as the barber quickly prepared to shave him. "Go find Mark," he told her, waving a hand. The boy was at his side instantly. "Read those dispatches and see if there is anything that I need to know." Cromwell tipped his head back as his barber began to lather him.

Mark tried to disguise the alarm in his voice. "Sir, I – what if I miss something?"

"Never fear. I shall read over them later. This is just practice." Cromwell closed his eyes, and when the shave was over he looked over Mark's excerpts. The boy had done well, but Cromwell wished he had given more pieces of the dispatches. Not because more were needed, but because Cromwell had stalled long enough and had no more excuses not to go to the king's audience immediately. Popping a piece of cheese into his mouth from the breakfast tray, Cromwell glanced one last time into the mirror in his bedchamber, reasoned that he probably usually looked this drawn and haggard, and made for the royal chambers.

"Did you enjoy yourself last night?" The king's happy face irked Cromwell. Why was he so cheery today? And at what hour had he arisen? The king was clean-shaven, freshly washed and perfumed, and fully festooned in an elaborate outfit for a sunrise conference. He had been playing himself at chess before his secretary arrived. Cromwell hoped that he would not be invited to play. He always won at chess and hated to pretend to lose to his king. His eyes avoided the elaborate carved-ivory pieces dotting the large chess board at the opposite end of the council table.

"The banquet was lovely, Majesty."

"That is not what I asked, Master Cromwell. Did you _enjoy_ yourself?" Henry raised his eyebrows at his secretary, genuinely wanting to know whether he had enjoyed the banquet. Cromwell sensed that the topic of conversation was about to bleed into congratulating each other on putting Anne through that horrible unwanted saltarello with Cromwell, and the secretary did not wish to discuss that at all.

"I did, indeed, Majesty." He gave a quick, generous smile.

Henry smiled, looking down at the chessboard. "The queen looked beautiful."

Cromwell was visibly taken aback at that. She had looked beautiful, but why in the world would Henry say so? After a short pause, the secretary cleared his throat. "Yes, Her Majesty was in good spirits last evening."

"She is a beautiful woman." Henry picked up a pawn and experimentally placed it in three different squares, imagining what move he would then make against himself were he to place it in each spot. From where he was standing, a dozen paces away, Cromwell could see that Henry should move the bishop, not the pawn.

"Your Majesty was wearing the new Venetian silk, so I believe. How liked you the fabric?" The Venetian ambassador had recently presented Henry with a gift of seven or so different new textiles from his home city, a hefty bolt of each, silks, satins, velvets, damasks, all embroidered and selected in colours that would flatter the King of England. Cromwell hoped that Henry would want to talk about expensive garments today. God's blood, they could talk about sheep-shearing if Henry wanted. Anything to avoid talking about Anne. Cromwell just could not bear it. He would even throw a chess match. Just let an hour pass without being forced to think about that woman.

Henry trudged on, seemingly deaf to Cromwell's question about the silk. "She was very talkative last night, and very attentive. She danced toward the end of the banquet," Henry narrated, staring at the chess board as though watching her leap and twirl. "Just a few turns. She seemed very happy – well, she always is while she's dancing. But she watched me all night. All night, those eyes of hers were on me." Henry snorted at some private joke or memory. "She has a very … piercing gaze."

_You have no idea. Wait until she has determined she wants you dead, and then fucks you by mistake, and then is afraid you are going to use it against her._ "Did Your Majesty enjoy the banquet?" Cromwell asked weakly, trying again to steer the conversation back to Henry.

"Do you think she is suspicious?" Henry's own piercing gaze was on his secretary now. The words shot across the clear air between them and punctured Cromwell's heart. _Suspicious? No. Never._

Cromwell forced back a sigh. "Her Majesty is certainly aware," the secretary tiptoed around the words that would upset the king, "that there is some… instability to her position. She is an intuitive and intense-minded woman," he added hastily, "and it is only natural that she would have such thoughts."

He watched Henry turn over the thought in his mind. "Intuitive," the king nodded, a little smirk turning up the corners of his mouth. "Intense. Yes, she is." His smile looked cruel. "Passionate, too." He glanced sidelong at his secretary.

Cromwell's mouth went dry. Did he know? _Of course not. Don't be ridiculous._ "Is that so, Majesty?" he asked noncommittally.

Henry looked back down at his chessboard, running the pad of his index finger over the tip of the queen piece. "Oh, for certain." The king plucked the queen up and turned it over and over in his hand with quick, light movements as he crossed the room, then drummed it on the tabletop. "Makes for very exciting… well, you know." Henry raised his eyebrows quickly at Cromwell, one side of his mouth twitching back up in that annoying smirk. Cromwell's stomach lurched again. _Keep calm._

"I see." A slow nod. Could he be imagining this? Could he really be hearing this?

"Could be a shame, you know…" Henry mused as he took long, slow steps along the floor, trailing the queen piece on the table as he moved. "Never know what you're getting, taking a virgin to wife. I got lucky with Anne. Truth be told, Thomas, from the very first time it was like shooting stars. She just… somehow, she just drove me wild, without even knowing me as a lover. Instinctual, I suppose. For all the flaws that woman has, her… intuition, as you said, her passion, lend her a power of pleasing that I did not expect, that most men would kill to have in their wife. That is one thing I do not want to let go. I got lucky with Anne," he repeated, plunking the queen piece on the table. He then flipped it in the air and let it bounce and come to rest on the table before looking at Cromwell. "With Lady Jane… so pure and innocent, who knows? Who. Knows." His tone was searching.

Cromwell had no idea what he was supposed to say to that. Had he been summoned here to assure Henry that he would enjoy Jane Seymour as much as he had enjoyed Anne Boleyn? Was he really supposed to advise the king on these matters too? At length, he felt he must say something. "Well, Your Majesty, I am a firm believer that true love is the deciding factor in such matters, and the real and unadulterated love between yourself and the Lady Seymour–"

"I want to fuck her one last time."

Henry cut him off mid-sentence, the shock value that the king intended so effective that Cromwell literally froze in the middle of forming his word and remained thus, his jaw half-open, his face slack. He tried not to let the horror, guilt, understanding show on his face. "Majesty, I…" His mouth opened, closed, opened. He was inexplicably angry at Henry, angry that he could perceive Anne as nothing more than a pair of spread legs for Henry's enjoyment, angry that he could use such a creature for such superficial pleasures. Oh, the irony – as though Cromwell himself had a deeper, more meaningful relationship with her, or with any woman for that matter. Was this protectiveness that he felt? What should he say? Finally, he had to do something he rarely did in front of the king: let the truth out. "I know not what to say, sire. I've no response to that." He tried to look only lost and earnest, and not the slightest bit angry or jealous at the prospect of the king enjoying his own lawful wedded wife.

Henry probably had no idea of the expression on Cromwell's face. He was lost in his own world, staring off into space, his fingers lightly drumming the tabletop as he probably imagined the things he wanted to do to his wife before he sent her on her way. Cromwell felt his stomach clench, and he swore he was going to be sick, but he forced it back down, swearing silently that he would find some way, some method, to help Anne, to make up to her what he was helping do to her, what he was about to enable Henry to do to her, to use her and throw her out like a whore. Cromwell averted his eyes from his king. He could not look at him. He was disgusted by him.

The king eventually wrapped up his self-indulgent reverie, took a deep breath, and looked back at Cromwell, a knowing smile on his face. For a moment Cromwell feared the king might wink at him, but it did not happen. Henry shrugged. "Nothing _to_ say, my lord." He snatched up the queen piece from the tabletop where it lay on its side, inspected it, got lost for a moment in another fantasy, and finally bit down on the piece. This time Henry did wink at his secretary. "You know the rules. King takes queen."

Cromwell forced himself to chuckle. "King does indeed, Your Majesty."

On his way back to his office, Cromwell tried to unravel what had just happened. The king had given him no assignment, no dispatches, nothing at all. He had not broached any subject with him other than his dreamy ramblings about his current wife's prowess between the sheets, and he had not given Cromwell any commission or asked what progress in the endeavour of getting rid of her. Could Henry possibly be changing his mind? Could he be thinking about keeping Anne? The thought both relieved and terrified Cromwell. He wanted Anne gone, yes – but now – there was something pulling at him, something telling him that it was unfair to help Henry get rid of her. More than unfair, and more than wrong, even, because Cromwell never much cared when he did something unfair. It was more the idea of doing something unfair to Anne that repelled him, and he knew not why exactly. It was not because he had taken her on his desk or anything relating to that. It was inexplicable.

But then, the thought of looking at that face of hers every day for the rest of his life, knowing what they had done and always hiding it, fearing the day that … the day that what? Again, he did not know. When he thought of it that way, though, he wanted Henry to call him back and tell him to plow full speed ahead on the plan for getting rid of his second wife. He wanted her gone, he wanted her destroyed, he wanted her… he did not know. If there was one thing that Cromwell could not tolerate, it was being at odds with himself. Even worse now, as not only was he at odds with himself, but his master appeared to be experiencing internal conflict as well.

Cromwell blustered through the busy outer chambers of his apartments, pleased to see his clerks scribbling and blotting and sanding away. He sank into his great desk chair as though he had not rested in days, lifting one hand to brush away the scraps of the rose drawing that he had shredded the previous night. They flew through the air as he brushed his palm across the desktop, several pieces landing on the floor, one getting stuck under the corner of another document, and a few littering his own lap. He breathed in and smelled nothing; looked to the office door and saw nothing; closed his eyes and felt nothing. He was calm. He was steady. It was time to work. Whatever the outcome, he resolved for what felt like the thousandth time this week, he would work. He picked up the stack of dispatches that Mark had outlined for him this morning and began sorting through them, reading them one by one and making note of what details Mark had left out and whether they were important. He outlined the dispatches himself, intending to give Mark both versions, that he might learn this more advanced clerical skill. Quill scratched across parchment, excess ink dotted here and there, and Cromwell lost himself in words, in language, in the craft of his trade. He was, always had been, a man of words. He was also a man of numbers, and thoughts, and ideas, but first and foremost he was a man of words. Again, he was able to find peace.

Clerks and associates bustled in an out all day. Mrs. Lockton checked on him, cleared his breakfast tray when it was clear that despite his wretched personal appearance, the secretary was not taking a light day. She brought him warm spiced wine at midday, and served supper at his desk. When she cleared that tray, she suggested tentatively, "Perhaps, sir, you should get up and stretch your legs. You've not moved since this morning."

She was right. He had not moved since this morning. And, he realized with happy surprise, he had not thought about this morning since this morning. Had not thought of the king, their discussion, or her. He had actually managed to spend a day doing his job without interruption. Although it had just been a few days since he had found himself unable to focus, it felt like an eternity since he had been productive. Relief washed over him. "You are right, Mrs. Lockton, thank you." He would get up and take respite from his desk briefly, and then return and work into the night. He finished the letter that he had been writing, sanded it and sealed it. He did not even notice that when he stood up the scraps of the rose drawing fell from his lap onto the floor. That evening he barely took his eyes off one document or another; he heard nothing from the king, and thought nothing on him. He felt like himself again, and to seal that fact he worked well past midnight, his stomach grumbling as Mrs. Lockton came in to ask whether he would be going to sleep soon. His bath was prepared, and it was time to put the work of England to rest. "I am coming," he told his maid with a yawn. "Tell them to leave the bath, I will be there in just a moment." He stretched back in his chair and rubbed his forehead, then organized the documents that he would take on first in the morning. He picked up his ledger and found that one last scrap of rose, this piece all stem. The other pieces that had littered the floor had been swept away by Mrs. Lockton some hours ago, leaving this one as the last. Cromwell picked it up and held it carefully over the flame of a candle resting on his desk, watching as it caught fire and finally tossing it in the air just before he singed his fingers. It died before it hit the floor. The toe of his boot scattered the ashes, and there was nothing left. Pulling off his chain of office, Cromwell hoisted himself out of his chair and made for his bedchamber. "See there?" he murmured as he left his desk. "You've no power over me."

iii.

Predictably, the sun was cruel the morning after a banquet. It reached in through the unshaded window and with gentle but insistent fingers prodded Mary Shelton awake. Her tangled hair was in a matted heap on her chest, across which was also the arm of Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt was asleep beside her, on his belly with his head turned to face away from her. His messy blonde hair, that quite frankly could do with a trim, stuck out every which way on the pillow. Frowning, Mary slithered out of bed, careful not to disturb Wyatt, and placed his arm under the covers. She found her stockings and slipped them back on, stepped into her underskirts and did a clumsy job at lacing herself into her own corset and stomacher. They were too loose, but that was no matter. All she needed was to make it back to her own bedchamber and undress again so she could wash Wyatt off of her. Trying to smooth her hair back in case she should meet anyone, Mary wished she had thought to unplait it properly last evening – but then, she barely thought the blonde man in bed would have had the patience to wait for that. She twisted her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. That would just have to do. Picking up the dainty high heels that he had thrown behind him before they made love last night, Mary scooped up her train and held the front of her dress and began tiptoeing toward the door.

She was within an arm's length when his sleepy voice reached out and pulled her back.

"Leaving so soon, madam?"

Mary cringed as though he had pinched her. This was the part she really disliked. She would have preferred to leave without conversation and for them to go on living their lives as though nothing had happened, but Wyatt had not only the unfortunate status of being a light sleeper, but apparently also the annoying trait of not knowing when not to speak. "My duty to the queen calls," she responded lightly.

"I see." He rubbed at his eyes. "Are you well?"

What sort of question was that? She cocked an eyebrow. "Yes, quite so. And you?"

Her voice was not warm, he noted. "Quite also. I enjoyed myself last evening." He smirked at her.

She smiled back, a businesslike, polite smile. "I noticed."

"You did not?" There was a prick of alarm in his tone.

"Not what I said."

"But did you?" he persisted.

_For God's sake. Who is the man here?_ "Indeed, sir. I generally enjoy myself at banquets."

"No," he bumbled, knowing how foolish he sounded. "After? Did you enjoy yourself after?"

"Yes, I did."

"You do not sound as though you enjoyed yourself."

Mary sighed a little. She could feel the knot coming undone at the base of her neck. "Well, I know not what else to tell you. I did enjoy myself."

"Very much?" _Stop it, man_, he chided himself. _You sound pathetic._

"It was very satisfactory." She smiled again, her hand on the door.

He lolled his head sideways on the pillow. "From the way you speak, I think I am not the first…"

"Not the first?" her lips pursed into a coquettish, lopsided smile. "Surely you must have realized that when we were lying there." She nodded at the bed.

Wyatt choked out a scoffing laugh at the baldness of her insinuation. "Not that you were not a virgin. I mean, not the first that you have brushed off."

"I am not brushing you off," Mary insisted, impatient. "I simply have to leave. I have much to do."

"Ah, yes, the busy court lady. So, Mistress Hastening, shall I see you again?"

"If you pay court to the queen, or if I encounter you in a corridor, I should say so. And of course, at state and court functions." She adjusted her skirts, tucking a wrinkle under her stomacher.

Wyatt was shocked. He had meant the question playfully. "You would not go out of your way to see me?"

"Perhaps," she replied noncommittally, glancing up from her bodice.

He swallowed. He had never encountered a woman like this. And she must be… what? No more than twenty or twenty-one years. He found his voice. "And were you truly going to leave without a farewell kiss, madam?"

She sighed visibly, rolling her eyes, and then left her spot near the door to cross the room, high heels still in hand. To kiss him, she had to climb back onto the bed, and she lifted the front of her skirts enough to place one knee on the feather mattress. He glimpsed the gold bows that he had untied last night to peel her stockings down. The knot fell out and her hair spilled over one shoulder. She pressed her lips to his and he expected her to be gone the next moment, but to his surprise she deepened the kiss, her tongue pushing into his mouth and one fist tangling in his hair. Pulling back, she flashed a smile and made to retreat, but Wyatt strained upward and caught her elbow, propelling her toward him. He put his lips next to his ear. "I will immortalize you in poetry as the goddess that you are," he promised in a heavy whisper. He felt her smile against his face, which was pressed to hers.

"I know you will," she whispered back, surprising him again. He remained frozen, half propped, half strained, as she backed away from him and slipped on her shoes. No point in carrying them now; he was awake. She crossed to the bedchamber door, unbolted it, and cracked it open. Knowing that his eyes followed her every move, Mary turned back and smiled at him one more time. "Why do you think I accepted your hand in the first place?"

A wink, and she was gone.

**UP NEXT:**

The queen's apartments were silent. Cromwell could hardly believe his good luck. Every one of those nosing women elsewhere, all at once, just when he needed to have a quick look at her personal items. He eased the door open completely; it made a bit of a creak, but still nothing stirred. No forgotten linen maid, no lone serving boy. Everyone was gone. He stepped into the presence chamber and looked around. The room was still, the window on the opposite wall ajar, no fire in the fireplace, a few lone goblets sprinkled on a tabletop or shelf here or there. Cromwell cast a glance toward the opposite wall, closer to the queen's bedchamber, and his heart literally stopped when he spotted Anne sitting there in a chair, embroidering a square of white linen. No one else was around her, and she was so still, her head bent down to watch her needle, that it took Cromwell several seconds to persuade himself that she was really there. She barely moved. Was she a vision? No, he thought as he watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed. No, she was really there. Well, where was everyone else? And why was she not looking up?

Then suddenly everything was clear. It had all been a ruse, a game of cat and mouse. She had made it appear as though she had left, and everyone else had left, so she could catch him in the act. She was pretending not to notice that he had just barged into her presence chamber like a thief in the night. Clearly he could not approach her. She must know he was there. Or maybe she did not? In his confusion, anything seemed possible. His instinct was to retreat.

As Cromwell carefully shifted his weight to his back foot and prepared to leave the room, Anne's voice rose steadily from her bent head.

"Have you come to dance another saltarello, Master Cromwell?"

He was really not in the mood to play. "Majesty, forgive me," he replied, bowing.

"For what? Whatever you are doing, you have not done it yet." She raised her head at this, still holding her needle like a spear. A smile ghosted across her face, and a quick twist of the lips betrayed her emotion. "When you do, you may come again to ask my forgiveness." She went back to her embroidering.

_When I do, you will not be in these rooms. I will have to go elsewhere to ask your forgiveness,_ he corrected her.

"Although, when you do, I will probably not be here, is that not right, Master Cromwell?" Her eyes did not move from her linen.

Cromwell gulped, unnerved at how she read his thoughts. Or perhaps they just thought alike. "I know not–"

She held up a hand to stop him, tossing her sewing aside at last. "I know, I know, you know not of what I speak. You never do." She stood effortlessly, her hands clasping in front of her narrow waist. She was wearing a black velvet gown, with a simple square neckline that was cut wide over her shoulders and long, straight fitted sleeves. Her hair was pulled back from her shoulders into a simple, loose knot, and her long neck and ears were bare. She looked exhausted. At the risk of betraying himself, Cromwell stared at her. She was mesmerizing. For all the priceless garments and jewels that she owned, Anne was as beautiful in the blandest outfit with circles under her eyes as she was with cosmetics and in cloth-of-gold that cost a shilling for every inch. "And yet you always do, Master Cromwell." Her voice was tired, almost soft, almost carressing. She did not want to fight. She held his gaze and he maintained hers, both afraid of and burning to see what she would say next.

"Majesty, I am sorry for the intrusion." He tried to back away, tried to disentangle himself from that burning gaze and slip backward out the door through which he had just tiptoed.

"Close the door." Goosebumps pricked his skin at the simple order. She had not said 'behind you.' It was a royal order to stay.

THANK YOU FOR READING! : )


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **Hello to my readers! Here is my latest chapter, with some Cromwell, some Cromwell/Anne, and some Nan/Madge/Mary/Elizabeth/Bess – I hope you love it! Leave a review if you wish!

PS – did you guys hate my last chapter or something? I got so few reviews! I'm going to hope that you just didn't have time to review. =)

Raquel Beth, Sorry to tease – but I love having those teasers in there! It makes people look forward to my next chapter so much! Hope you enjoy this one. =)

Anonymous, I love the tension between Henry and Cromwell too, and it's there in the series as much as I bet it was in history. There will be more, I promise!

Piraticaly-Insane, thank you for the compliments! I hope the Anne-Cromwell scene here is to your liking =)

i.

23 April 1536 – Morning

"Anna Regina."

The words stared back at him.

A large, flawless, beautiful piece of parchment spread before him on his desk, with those words, "Anna Regina," written in large, flawless, beautiful calligraphy. There was space above and below the words, space that he had left for notes, figures, diagrams, whatever else he might need to draw up the plans for getting rid of her.

Cromwell had awakened to another message from the King this morning, this one cryptic, terse, and a bit chilling:

"Upon further reflection I no longer wish to pursue the matter that we discussed yesterday. Onward. – H Rex"

He could almost hear Henry saying those words, could almost see the cold lines in the monarch's face as he set his jaw and determined that he was above desiring Anne. Had the whole set of circumstances not been so wretched, Cromwell could almost commiserate. It was difficult to put that specific matter out of one's mind once it had taken root there. In this way Cromwell could almost understand his king, but that was to no one's benefit, and certainly not Cromwell's own. So, he had shaved, dressed, broken his fast and sat down at his desk, dipping his quill and scrawling "Anna Regina" with a flourish. And then nothing.

Cromwell chewed on his lower lip determinedly, peeling layers of chapped, dead skin from the inside of his mouth. He twisted his jaw and frowned at the paper. He scratched behind one ear. He adjusted his sleeve. He pointed, flexed, pointed the toe of his right foot. Finally, he shouted for Mark.

"Sir?"

"Go and see what the Queen is doing."

Mark gulped a little. "Yes, sir."

"And keep it quiet."

"Of course, sir." The lad bowed his blonde head and hustled from the room before Cromwell could give him another terrifying task. He rushed through the outer chambers of Cromwell's apartments and made his way down gray stone corridors, prickling with mid-morning sunlight. When he reached the queen's chambers, Mark stopped short, realizing that he barely knew how to get inside. What would he say, once there? It dawned on him that his master had intended he would go and track down one of Cromwell's own agents who was likely to know her whereabouts, rather than to go investigate first-hand. While Mark berated himself silently for making such a foolish error, and as he considered the most efficient track to take from here, the outer door to the Queen's apartments swung open. A freckle-faced young woman with spritely green eyes hustled out, carrying an armload of what appeared to be samples of fine textiles. She turned her face on him, and her eyes arrowed a little.

"Who are you?"

"I…" Mark sought the proper words. "Good morning, my lady." He glanced at her ivory gown, took in the expensive string of pearls around her neck. He noted that she wore no wedding ring.

"Good morning," she responded. Then, with a glare, "Who are you? May I help you?"

She sounded more threatening than helpful, and Mark realized immediately that he had blundered in coming this close to the Queen's apartments without thinking through his plans. Master Cromwell always taught his pages to think through their plans prior to execution. "I… I am sorry if I have intruded. I seem to have lost my way. I am on an errand for Master Cromwell."

"I'll wager you are," she said with a small smirk. "What was the errand? Perhaps I can help you."

Mark opened his mouth, then closed it, aware that he was not adroit enough at lying to make it through this encounter. "I shall find my way," he mumbled instead, turning back the way he had come. He looked at her freckled nose one more time. "Good day, madam."

Nan Saville watched him go. "Find your way," she repeated softly, then backed through the door again. Anne was in her personal bedchamber; Nan knocked and slipped in. "Majesty, I just encountered a servant of Master Cromwell's lurking outside the door to your apartments."

Anne had, apparently, chosen her gown for the day already, and she was slipping into it. When Nan had left to return the swatches of Venetian silk to the seamstress, the Queen had been sitting, cross-legged, on her bed in a set of underskirts, stockings, and a corset, with a fiery red dressing gown over her disjointed ensemble. Her hair had been twisted into a loose knot, and she had been chewing on one thumbnail instead of eating her breakfast as she sketched the bodice for a new gown she wanted to have made. Now, apparently, she had tired of sketching, and found one of the most subdued gowns she owned, deciding it appropriate for the day. Plain black velvet slithered over the Queen of England's hips and upward to cover her torso; she paused to slip first one hand, then the other, into the sleeves of her gown and shrugged it over her shoulders. "Is that so?" Anne asked, half-turning. "What did he want?"

Nan dropped the silk onto a little table and came behind Anne, straightening the back of her gown and tightening the laces. "I know not, madam. He seemed very agitated."

"Was he looking for something?" Anne twisted her fingers together absently.

"It certainly seemed thus to me," Nan murmured back.

Anne snorted a little. "Whatever he sought, he would be certain not to find it here."

Nan did not reply; instead, she perfected her mistress's laces and tucked then into the top of the black velvet skirt.

"Thank you, Nan," Anne smiled as she crossed the room to check her reflection. Her hair was unimaginative, but acceptable. She wore no jewelry, no cosmetics. Black slippers adorned her feet. She turned away from the mirror, looking inspired, and went to the outer chamber where her ladies bustled about, reading, embroidering, passing the time. "Ladies," Anne announced regally, "I think that you all should prepare to go out to pick wildflowers."

Bubbling with excitement at any task outside the ordinary, the ladies began to search for baskets, linens, and shears. Nan, still in the Queen's bedchamber, tentatively asked whether Anne meant to wear the black velvet out to pick wildflowers.

"I shan't be joining you ladies, Nan." Anne smiled conspiratorially. Nan, understanding, smiled back. "I shall need you to keep order and look after things."

"Yes, Madam." Nan bobbed.

A quarter hour later, as the ladies gathered the last of the necessities and headed out into the golden sun, Anne bid them have fun and murmured to Nan as she passed: "See that you all take your time." The door closed behind her ladies, and Anne imagined it opening again. She moved a small table out of the center of the room, counting the steps between the two chairs that sat opposite one another, and positioned them a little farther apart. The laughter of her ladies-in-waiting floated up from the courtyard below. Smiling, Anne picked up a square of linen and sat down in a chair facing her outer chamber door. She was ready. She glanced up again and imagined the heavy wooden door swinging open.

Cromwell's heavy wooden door swung open, and there stood Mark, not looking triumphant.

"Well?" Cromwell asked baldly.

"Well, I was intercepted along the way by one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting," Mark explained – no need to tell the Master Secretary just how much of a fool he had been with this errand. "I thought it best not to push, that she might become suspicious."

"I see." Cromwell's voice was disappointed. "And did you discern anything?"

"Only that Her Majesty's rooms are occupied," Mark replied. "I apologize, sir."

"No need." The secretary flashed a smile. "You did all you could." He tossed a sheaf of papers across his desk at Mark. "Check these sums for me, will you?"

Mark nodded and sat at a nearby clerical desk, making notations to the figures in the margins of the parchment. No more than a quarter hour had passed when, in the quiet of the morning, a smattering of giggles rose from the courtyard below. Young ladies' voices, talking excitedly and laughing with abandon, were audible outside. They grew fainter as the ladies left the palace grounds. Mark could swear that Cromwell's ears pricked up at the sound, and the secretary and clerk locked eyes. Cromwell was frozen for a few moments, and then jumped from his chair. "Let's go."

Alert as always to the signs of royal ladies-in-waiting as they neared the Queen's apartments, Cromwell felt his spirits soaring. Surely there was something in her apartments, in those now-empty apartments, that he could find to use against her. As of now, he had very little to go on. Well, there was that one matter. But he pushed that from his mind. There was one, yes; that meant there must be more.

Outside her door, he stopped and listened. Nothing. He pressed his ear to the door and listened. Nothing. He glanced at Mark. "You are to signal me at once if anyone approaches."

"Yes, sir," Mark whispered, nodding. Cromwell pushed the door open a crack and peered in, half-expecting a cluster of pearl-clad ladies to stand staring back at him; his heart pounded at this unauthorized entrance.

The queen's apartments were silent. Cromwell could hardly believe his good luck. Every one of those nosing women elsewhere, all at once, just when he needed to have a quick look at her personal items. He eased the door open completely; it made a bit of a creak, but still nothing stirred. No forgotten linen maid, no lone serving boy. Everyone was gone. He stepped into the presence chamber and looked around. The room was still, the window on the opposite wall ajar, no fire in the fireplace, a few lone goblets dotting a tabletop or shelf here or there. Cromwell cast a glance toward the opposite wall, closer to the queen's bedchamber, and his heart literally stopped when he spotted Anne sitting there in a chair, embroidering a square of white linen. No one else was around her, and she was so still, her head bent down to watch her needle, that it took Cromwell several seconds to persuade himself that she was really there. She barely moved. Was she a vision? No, he thought as he watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed. No, she was really there. Well, where was everyone else? And why was she not looking up?

Then suddenly everything was clear. It had all been a ruse, a game of cat and mouse. She had made it appear as though she had left, and everyone else had left, so she could catch him in the act. She was pretending not to notice that he had just barged into her presence chamber like a thief in the night. Clearly he could not approach her. She must know he was there. Or maybe she did not? In his confusion, anything seemed possible. His instinct was to retreat.

As Cromwell carefully shifted his weight to his back foot and prepared to leave the room, Anne's voice rose steadily from her bent head.

"Have you come to dance another saltarello, Master Cromwell?"

He was really not in the mood to play. "Majesty, forgive me," he replied, bowing.

"For what? Whatever you are doing, you have not done it yet." She raised her head at this, still holding her needle like a spear. A smile ghosted across her face, and a quick twist of the lips betrayed her emotion. "When you do, you may come again to ask my forgiveness." She went back to her embroidering.

_When I do, you will not be in these rooms. I will have to go elsewhere to ask your forgiveness,_ he corrected her.

"Although, when you do, I will probably not be here, is that not right, Master Cromwell?" Her eyes did not move from her linen.

Cromwell gulped, unnerved at how she read his thoughts. Or perhaps they just thought alike. "I know not–"

She held up a hand to stop him, tossing her sewing aside at last. "I know, I know, you know not of what I speak. You never do." She stood effortlessly, her hands clasping in front of her narrow waist. She was wearing a black velvet gown, with a simple square neckline that was cut wide over her shoulders and long, straight fitted sleeves. Her hair was pulled back from her shoulders into a simple, loose knot, and her long neck was bare. She looked exhausted. At the risk of betraying himself, Cromwell stared at her. She was mesmerizing. For all the priceless garments and jewels that she owned, Anne was as beautiful in the blandest outfit with circles under her eyes as she was with cosmetics and in cloth-of-gold that cost a shilling for every inch. "And yet you always do, Master Cromwell." Her voice was tired. She did not want to fight. She held his gaze and he maintained hers, both afraid of and burning to see what happened next.

"Majesty, I am sorry for the intrusion." He tried to back away, tried to disentangle himself from that burning gaze and slip backward out the door through which he had just tiptoed.

"Close the door." Goosebumps pricked his skin at the simple order. She had not said 'behind you.' It was a royal order to stay. He closed the door behind him with a soft click and waited. She had not taken her eyes from his face. "I suppose one of your boys is standing watch?" A hint of a raised eyebrow, a small smirk.

"Yes, Madam."

"Sit." Anne gestured to two chairs in front of a large window, no table between them as there once had been. They were not close together, but nothing formed a barrier between them. He glanced about. The carved Italian table had been moved a few yards away, against a wall. This had been done on purpose. She had planned this. She had prepared for this. She had engineered this. Wordlessly, he looked from the chairs to the queen to the table, and back to the chairs, and then back to the queen.

"Majesty…" he trailed off, not sure whether to tell her he could not speak to her, or whether to tell her he would rather stand, or whether to congratulate her on out-manipulating him before he had even had his midday meal.

Her voice hardened. "Master Cromwell, I am still Queen of England, and you will sit when I order you to."

He waited for her to cross the room and grab him by the collar as she had last time she uttered a similar phrase, but it did not happen. He felt a little pang of disappointment that Anne was not as fiery, but he was more concerned at what the absence of such a fundamental facet of her personality could mean. Apparently he had no other choice than to sit, whether he wanted to know or not. He nodded deeply. "Yes, Majesty."

Cromwell stepped forward, feeling bile in his stomach as he neared her. Anne did not move. Uncertainly, he moved toward the chairs and lowered himself into one. She waited until he sat before her to cross the floor toward him. He was distracted by the rippling of her black skirt as she walked. Had she always been such a walking, talking, breathing work of art? He followed the movements of her skirt until it was directly before him, then raised his eyes to her drawn face as she dropped into the chair opposite him with as much ease as when she had risen out of her previous one. After a long pause, Anne leaned against the back of the chair. "So," she said softly, then swallowed before looking him in the face, "why have you come?"

He almost smiled. She asked the question knowing that she would never in a thousand years receive a true, honest answer. He shrugged in response.

At his shrug, she lowered her eyes sadly and nodded. She slumped backward a little in her chair. Her collarbones seemed to lift straight out of the skin of her chest as she took in a great breath. "I suppose you were hoping to find something amiss, some technicality of queenship that I have violated, some error worthy of removing my crown." Her eyes flicked around the room, resting at some faraway point on the opposite wall. "Unfortunately, even were I gone, there would be little for you to inspect. I am not the shining gem of Henry's court as I once was. My apartments are no longer the center of liveliness. You would find a great lot of philosophical writings, as always, and a few sheaves of gown sketches, as always, and that is all." She tucked a stray strand of hair into her coif and ran her hand over her neck absently, unaware that Cromwell's eyes followed every nuanced movement of those long fingers. Her wedding ring caught the pale light that trailed in the window to Cromwell's right, and he looked away guiltily.

"Your Majesty has a reputation for upstanding moral character," he murmured diplomatically. He kept his tone even, uncomfortably unaware why she had invited him to stay.

Anne snorted. "I am The Great Whore." She giggled a little, and as always, it bubbled in her throat into something deeper, and she tilted her head back a little, all but collapsed now in her chair. He watched her collarbone shake with her laughter, followed its line to the side of her neckline, barely holding onto the edge of one pale shoulder. A little spurlike crest of bone protruded from her shoulder. _She is so thin_, he thought. He wondered what would happen if the black velvet slipped off.

"Your Majesty's public image has come a long way from those days," Cromwell said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. Truth be told, he was increasingly unnerved with this audience. Had she gone mad at last? She had seemed on the verge so many times in the past months. What did she have to say to him?

Her laughter died on her lips, and her eyes were ablaze, her mouth open a little with a smirk. This was the Anne he knew. "Has it?" He nodded in response. "I am much comforted, then, Master Cromwell. I think to gain the respect of the people. Eventually, even, their love."

He raised his eyebrows a little, the response they both knew him to have unable to be spoken: _you do not have time to do any of that._ "I daresay, madam, that you have earned much respect and love from the people of England already."

Her velvet came down even lower on her shoulder as she brought her hand up to clasp it behind her neck, her forearm pressed against her chest. "So then I am no longer The Great Whore?" she asked, a little teasingly.

What in God's name was this? Was she hinting at the unspeakable? Was she attempting to trick him into betraying some piece of information? He looked at her face and saw nothing there. He could not read her expression. There was nothing. "No, Your Majesty. Those days are gone." He was aware of the possible irony of their discussion, but entirely unaware of her motivations for having the conversation in the first place. Perhaps she was not even thinking what he was thinking. Why was he thinking what he was thinking? He looked at her in alarm, although the alarm was internal. What if he had imagined the whole thing? There was nothing, no recollection, no guilt, no fear in her face. Had that truly happened, that afternoon? His palms could feel her wrists gripped between them as he held her hands behind her back. Had she twisted away from him, turned on her heel and stalked out of the room? He could see her retreating, her collar still intact, not ripped and mussed from his impatience, his nose not full of her perfume for the next days. She could have been wearing stockings. Had he dreamt the whole thing? Again he looked at her, searching for some clue as to whether she might be thinking the same thing as he, remembering the same sensations, kisses, touches, as he. There was nothing in her face. Either she was his match at dissembling or he was mad.

"Master Cromwell?" Anne's smirk was gone. She straightened in her chair, folded her hands in her lap – Cromwell ran his eyes over her covered arms, her graceful hands, all the way to those fingernails, before he looked at her face.

"Majesty?" He choked the word out. Sweat was beginning to form on his back. He felt dizzy.

"I was apologizing for the lack of fruits of your labour." Blue eyes appealed to him from beneath thick eyelashes. "Were you to have stumbled in here and had your run of my apartments, you would have found no more than you have found from our conversation." She swallowed again, seemingly back in control of herself, and scooted forward on the chair so she could speak more softly, as though anyone else was around to hear. "I know you came looking. I knew that you would come looking. There is nothing to find."

"I apologize once again for my intrusion, your Majesty." He blinked hard.

"No need. I know you would do it again."

"Yes. I would." There was no need to lie. She knew it, he knew it, her ladies and his clerks, the king and court all knew it. "But," he added hastily, "it is for that that I apologize."

The corners of her mouth turned up in a small, grateful smile. "Thank you." She leaned closer still, her voice barely above a whisper, forcing him to strain forward to hear her words. Forcing himself not to look at the skin of her shoulders and neck, Cromwell looked into her face, reading her lips. Her words caressed his cheeks. "I shan't cause you the trouble of coming again." Before he could react, Anne stood, so that he had to jerk backward to avoid coming uncomfortably close to her bodice. He stayed seated, a serious violation of protocol, staring again at her wedding ring as she folded her hands in front of her. He turned his head to the right out of deference and a slight wave of nausea. As Anne moved away to his left, back toward the center of the room, her voice became businesslike again. "As you probably know, all of my correspondence is in my desk drawers. The drawings of my gowns, should you like to investigate those as well, are filed in the flat drawer of that table." She flicked one hand toward the opposite corner of the room. Her voice was growing lower as she walked away from him, toward the corner of the room where the door to her bedchamber was. "You may rummage through what you like, take what you like; help yourself to my strawberry wine. My ladies will not return for at least a half hour. I believe all of the cupboards and drawers are unlocked; should something impede you, I will be in my windowseat reading Erasmus. Simply ask me for the key." Anne stopped near the entrance to her bedchamber, unaware that Cromwell's mouth was hanging open, dazed and utterly shocked at her grant of permission to investigate her private possessions. She adjusted a torso-length looking glass on a short table so that it showed her her own reflection. She smoothed her hair behind her ears, tugged the errant sleeve back up on her shoulder and took a deep breath. "You are welcome, Master Cromwell, to search where you like. I've nothing to hide here." She cocked the mirror back downward so that she was no longer looking at her reflection. After a long moment in which Cromwell's eyes traced down the angel-wing shoulderblades of the Queen of England's back, Anne turned sideways, her face coming square with his. "You need not search to find the sole mistake I have made." With that, she faced forward and slipped through the door of her bedchamber, her velvet whispering behind her, the closing of the door punctuating her statement. Cromwell's eyes watched her go, and when he glanced away from the door, it was to see his own face reflected in the mirror that she had adjusted.

Cromwell's chin quivered. He felt overwhelmed by emotions. Relief that he had not imagined it. Anger that she dared reference it aloud. Shock at her recklessness in letting him wander about her apartments. Admiration at her steadiness of mind and countenance. Fear that she seemed to feel no fear. Trepidation that he seemed to enjoy her more every time they met. He pushed this last one out of his mind. He put his hands to his face, looking at himself in the mirror. He knew that she was right; she had nothing to hide. He imagined that she believed this would keep her safe; but Cromwell knew, had always known, that if something needed to be brought against her, it would not be gleaned from something found in her apartments, nor gotten from an honest source, nor derived from anything factual. Anne would do nothing to help any of her detractors by actually being the person they derisively claimed her to be. If she was to be brought down, it would be through lies and forgery, not because she had done anything to deserve it. Furthermore, her lack of impunity would allow for greater embellishment by those who would create her sins. She was right: there was nothing for him to find. There was no reason for him to stay. One more glance at his conflicted face in the looking glass propelled Cromwell out of his chair, and his guilt nipped at his heels as he nearly jogged toward the outer door to her apartments, his shame driving him from her as quickly as possible. Mark stood waiting in the corridor, his young eyes widened expectantly. Cromwell grasped his elbow and the lad fell into step beside him. "Come along." Cromwell's voice was gravelly. "We've work to do."

ii.

Anne pressed her back to the door, waiting for any sound signaling movement. Minutes passed. Her heart hammered against her breastbone, and she covered it with both hands. "Dear Heart, be still," she whispered. She waited for the squeal of metal hinges as he opened a cupboard or door. She waited for the dry slapping of papers as he rifled through her sheets of parchment. She waited for the scrape of wood against wood as he moved chairs, tables, stuck needles in cushions, looked under rugs and behind chests for hidden documents or passageways or sums of money for illicit dealings. Only silence rose to her ears, in continuous waves. Silence was usually so comforting to her, but as time passed she began to tremble, her hands over her heart, pressed against the wood of the door. Then, abruptly, footsteps. Her stomach turned as she imagined they were approaching her door, wondering whether he would throw it open and – what? But then they softened and died, and the heavy door to the corridor opened and closed.

He was gone.

He had looked at nothing.

Anne crumpled to the stones, sliding down the wooden door, tears falling down her face, running down her neck and underneath her bodice, inside her corset. Why was she crying? Relief that he was gone? Uncertainty of the unknown? Triumph that he had trusted her? Her hands came to her eyes, covering her whole face, and she stopped wondering why she wept, instead curling into a ball on the floor and letting her plush gown soak up her tears. What else was velvet for?

iii.

"I know not what else you would prefer I do," Madge Shelton grumbled, furrowing her brow in concentration as she sought the stem of the orange bloom she wanted to pick. "Or any of us, for that matter."

Nan Saville set her jaw. "I know not either, but does it not seem unfair to you that we must watch our lady's star descend? And do nothing to help her?"

"What are you suggesting? Anything might yet happen. You know how it was with the Princess Dowager."

"Yes, I know exactly how it was with the Princess Dowager. That is what worries me. Our lady is no Princess. What will happen to her if he decides to rid himself of her?" At this, Madge glanced up, squinting into the near-noon sun as she looked at Nan. Finally, she grasped Nan's scruples.

"Anything might yet happen," Madge said at last. "This is not the first time he has strayed. He might yet return to her. Again."

Mary Shelton approached, catching their unhappy expressions. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," Madge muttered. "Where'd you spend your evening last? For sure you were not in our bed."

"Hush. I was there in the morning, is that not what counts?" Mary shook her dark curls over her thin shoulders and looked around for a flower that caught her interest. The ladies had ventured past the royal gardens and just off palace grounds, finding a golden meadow with a kingdom of young flowers to pick. The meadow bordered the royal game forests and fields, but it was virtually untouched. The ladies had spread out in the meadow, searching for the loveliest combination of colours to present to their queen that afternoon.

"No, it is not really," Madge returned, rolling her eyes. "If the Queen knew-"

"But she does not," Mary cut in with a shrug. "Besides, Her Majesty has more important things with which to concern herself than where this young lady spends her nights."

Nan watched this exchange with raised eyebrows. "Regardless, Mary, you should be careful. Should you get yourself in foal-"

"I shan't," Mary enunciated, sounding bored and exasperated. "None of you need worry. Have you seen any purple buds?"

Nan sighed. Youth, in all its certainty. She would learn. "I've not, no."

"Pity," Mary clucked. "I thought purple would be lovely… the colour of royalty and all." She looked up as Bess Dormer and Lizzie Seymour approached. "Have either of you seen any purple flowers?"

"No," Bess Dormer sighed. "Very few at all over there, in fact." She pointed to the far right, where the meadow crushed up against the forest's edge.

"Her Majesty loves purple," Lizzie remarked, nodding along with Mary Shelton's obvious intent. "It is a shame."

Mary reached for a fern-like weed and ripped it from the ground much less than gently. "She loves all colours! She can also wear any colour," she added, "which does help."

"Lately she has been wearing a lot of black," Madge said, twisting one curl around her index finger. "Even that colour becomes her."

"She has," Mary agreed, as though it had not occurred to her before. Her fingers were busy at work, separating the leaves of the fern-weed. "What does she mourn?"

"Her son?" Nan offered in a soft voice, hoping that the others would catch her reverent tone and drop the matter. They should not be discussing this.

"Or her queenship," Mary responded, her tone blasé. She glanced up when no one laughed or agreed, only to find the other ladies staring – or gaping – at her. "What? Prematurely!"

Bess Dormer's usually sweet countenance was hard. "You should not make comments in such poor taste," she said coldly.

Nan's face was the most severe. "Honestly, Mary. You should mind your words and behaviour all a good deal more. Her queenship. For God's sake." She shook her head and turned away to search for another flower, as though the sight of Mary was too much to bear.

"Do not blame me," Mary's petulant voice followed the Queen's most intimate companion as she turned away. "For only speaking the truth. That is not what angers you. Blame the sister of our Elizabeth here for Her Majesty's predicament."

All eyes turned to Elizabeth Seymour, who looked like a frightened child. Her mouth opened as though to retort, but it took her a few long moments to find her words. "One cannot be held accountable for the actions of one's sister!" She finally exclaimed.

"Well, that is for certain," Madge interjected, glaring at her younger sister. "Mary, think not that you can just make horrid comments and then blame someone else. If all courtiers behaved as you, the country would be plunged into civil war."

"The court is full of serpents and liars," Mary retorted. "I happen to believe that the court would do better to encourage free communication. No poetry. No false courtly favour. Each person able to speak his or her mind without fear of loss of property or honour. Everyone's opinion given equal weight."

Nan laughed out loud. "Ah, Mary, you are a dreamer. Well, perhaps some day, that will be true. But that day is not today, and in the interim, you would do well to be careful what you say."

"I shall think on it," Mary smiled back. She turned to Elizabeth Seymour. "I apologize if I impugned your sister's honour."

"But not if you offended mine?" Elizabeth shot back, her eyes narrowed.

"Yours as well." It was an afterthought.

Elizabeth shook her head. "Why does the honour of someone close to you matter less than someone further away, Mary? Can you not be polite? God help you if you ever attract a man with an angry temper."

"I attract men with all types of tempers," Mary shrugged. "I did not think to offend you, Elizabeth."

"Or perhaps you prefer Jane's favour over mine," Elizabeth said harshly, and did not finish her sentence: _because she, not I, will be your next Queen._ An uncomfortable silence fell over all the ladies.

"Nan, perhaps you should lecture Elizabeth next." Mary turned away, snatched her basket from the ground, and made for the opposite side of the meadow.

"That child," Bess said as they all watched her go, "is either destined for fame or the block."

"The two are not mutually exclusive," Elizabeth corrected her. "I'll wager she loses her appeal very early; she has not a care for decorum, and her looks are bound to fade as she continues to neglect herself and her soul. She will be old in three years' time." She patted Madge's shoulder. "Not like you, Madge. Your goodness and spirit will keep you young and fresh for ages."

Madge, ever the sensitive one of the group, looked up at Elizabeth with tearful eyes. "But she is the beautiful one now, and I cannot see past that."

Nan gestured toward Mary, and they all turned to watch her as she leapt through the meadow, all energy and vivacity, her long dark hair flying behind her. She had removed her hood some time ago, and she swung her flower basket as she jumped through the air. Her tiny waist and well-formed shoulders were indeed lovely. "She is beautiful only as deep as her skin. Your beauty comes from your soul," she reassured Madge. "Everyone knows the difference. Those who would choose her do so only for carnal purposes. Fear not, Madge."

"D'you think Sir Henry will ever marry me?" Madge asked forlornly. "Sometimes I worry he fancies her."

"Never!" Bess Dormer gasped. "He most certainly will propose soon. He is just waiting to finish mourning for his late wife and prepare for the wedding to you." Elizabeth Seymour nodded in agreement.

"Men take their time," Elizabeth soothed. "At least, when he does marry you, he will be able to treat you as his wife. Not like _my_ first husband," she rolled her eyes, then added piously, "… may God rest his soul."

Madge giggled. "Did you love him?"

"No," Elizabeth shook her head. "I did not. I loved the money he gave me, though, and I married him as my father bid. Who knows who my next husband might be."

Again, an uncomfortable moment passed as no one could say the obvious: _you might well soon be the sister of the Queen of England, able to have your pick of a foreign lord or any peer in the land._

"Your next husband will be grand," Nan nodded, "and Bess with her beautiful auburn hair will marry a wonderful man, and Madge and Sir Henry shall live happily ever after," she smiled, "and I shall marry no one because I am the plainest lady in all the world."

"Nonsense!" Madge scrunched her brow. "Nonsense. We are all so silly."

"That we are," Elizabeth agreed, shielding her eyes from the increasingly harsh sunlight. "Shall we start back? We've plenty of flowers."

"I think so," said Nan. Mentally, she calculated that she had left enough time for the Queen to do as she needed. The ladies gathered their baskets and straightened their hoods. "Mary!" Nan shouted across the meadow. "Come! We are for the palace!"

Mary shook her head, her hair flying out every which way. "Go ahead! I shall follow in a moment!"

Nan sighed and was about to argue, but Madge stayed her. "Just leave her be. If you demand, she will refuse. She feeds on it."

"Should we really leave her alone?"

"Yes," snorted Elizabeth. She, Bess and Madge stepped forward. Nan hung back, uncertain.

"I am responsible for bringing everyone back…"

"She will come back, I promise. She will not like to be alone for long. She just has the need to be different. It's hot out; come," Madge insisted.

"But if we leave…" Nan trailed off, clearly uncomfortable with this breach in protocol.

"Then maybe a bear will eat her," Bess piped up brightly. The other three ladies stared at her in shock. "Should I not have said that?"

Nan burst into laughter and threw an arm over Bess's shoulders. "Bess, I adore when you speak your mind. Let us go. To the palace!"

The four ladies set out for the Queen's apartments with as much giggling as they had left them, leaving the youngest, prettiest and liveliest member of the ladies-in-waiting alone in a quiet, empty field with no one to admire, pay heed to or listen to her but the weeds.

**UP NEXT:**

SEYMOURS. = DELICIOUS.

Edward crossed in front of Jane, hands clasped behind his back, looking regretful. "Lissie," he said in a syrupy voice, "am I to understand that you refuse to remove yourself from the Queen's service?"

Elizabeth looked from Jane to Tom, who shot back a guilty glance, and then raised her eyes back to Edward. Was this really what this was all about? "I am Her Majesty's lady-in-waiting," she said, as though Edward was stupid. "No, I will not remove myself."

"She will not be Queen for long," Edward raked his hand through his hair as he spoke, clearly thinking her the stupid one. "You've no need to serve her any longer."

"She is still the Queen," Elizabeth whispered, infuriated. "I cannot just leave."

"Have you some loyalty to her that we should know of?" Edward mocked.

"No." Elizabeth looked at the floor. "But she is the Queen," she repeated again. It was simple to her. "… is she not?"

"Queen or not, she is not your focus, Lissie," Edward lectured. "Your place is here. For whatever Jane needs."

Lissie looked at bedecked Jane and raised her eyebrows. "I think Jane looks quite well-managed without me."

Edward advanced on her as though he would strike her. He took her by the elbows. "Never disrespect your sister again," he hissed. "She will be Queen of England, and you had best know your place."

"I know it," Lissie sneered back, wrenching out of her brother's grasp. "I have always known it, and I will always. But she is not Queen, and I took an oath, to serve Queen Anne unless she dismisses me, for the duration of her reign. I must serve that at least in body if I do not in spirit. I will not quit the Queen's service unless I am destined for Wolf Hall," Elizabeth maintained. "I will not. I apologize, Edward, but I will not."

This time, Edward did raise his hand. "You foolish little-"

Lissie stepped back. "God's sake, Edward!" She shouted. "Direct your anger toward our father where it belongs!" A moment of stunned silence overtook the room. Realizing what she had just said, Elizabeth spun on her heel and rushed for the door. She had it unlatched and cracked open before Edward caught her, shoving the door closed and pushing the side of her face against it.

"Never speak to me thus again, Lissie, do you understand me?"

Enjoy! 3


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: **Hi everyone! New chapter, a bit longer than the recent ones – hopefully you like it! No Cromwell/Anne interaction this time, but lots of Seymour/Howard tension. Next two chapters are going to be interesting, and the third chapter from now (Chapter 20) is one I've been planning/anticipating for over a year and I'm SO excited to put it up. I hope everyone's still enjoying! The more reviews I get, the faster I update =) Thanks to all my readers, love you guys!

Pandora! Thanks so much for your review. I love Lissie too and am having a great time developing the Seymour dynamic, which I am finding fascinating. Jane is such an enigma. There are so many directions you can take her, she's just a blank canvas. Edward's the one you love to hate, Tom is just sorta there, and Lissie is a great multi-dimensional character. Cromwell's unease with the whole situation, as you can imagine, is going to heighten over the rest of the story. Hope you like this chapter =)

Anna! Never fear, there will be more interesting Cromwell/Anne scenes than just her being sanctimonious. As the tension in the situation mounts, I promise there will be more explosive encounters, and you will love them. Your story is coming along with such more pizzazz than mine, I'm jealous! It's beautifully done, I am so happy you're writing =) And even more glad that you are still reading mine too! As for the ladies-in-waiting, I am having a great time making Mary Shelton the sulky, petulant girl who thinks she knows everything. She's an interesting character to play off of. Hope you enjoy =)

Uber Drama Llama, thanks for reviewing! I appreciate it, and am pleasantly surprised that I have another long-term reader =) Yes, Cromwell attempting to investigate Anne was a bit of a fail-whale. I am so happy you're loving the story so far – please review again sometime and let me know what you think of my updates! Thank you!

And for the blank reviewer, I'm glad you enjoyed Chapter 16 and hope you like my Seymours in Chapter 17!

i.

24 April 1536 – Morning

It was much to Elizabeth Seymour's surprise to have a note pressed into her hand by her brother Edward's page the following morning as she left mass with the rest of the ladies. She unfolded it with the fingers of one hand and read it. It was simply a summons to a family meeting after she was no longer attending upon the Queen for the day. On the way back to the Queen's apartments, Elizabeth, clad in black, encountered her brother Tom. She hung back in the train of ladies, letting their somber gowns jostle her as they passed. Inquisitively, she waved the folded note that she had tucked between two fingers at Tom and raised her eyebrow. He fell into step beside her. "Glad to see you got it," he whispered.

"What is it about?"

Tom shrugged. "Just a family conference."

Elizabeth shook her head. "Why all the secrecy? Why can't I just ask Her Majesty to go speak with my father? Why must I wait until later? Why could Edward not just come and tell me?"

He elbowed her in the ribs. "Shh. Edward wants as few people as possible to know what is happening."

"What _is_ happening?" Elizabeth whispered back, frustrated.

"There are plans… I should not tell you this." He shook his head.

"Stop it. Tell me."

"I…" Tom cleared his throat as quietly as possible. "I think Edward means to remove you from the Queen's service, as Jane has… already been removed… well, more or less."

Incredulous, Elizabeth spluttered a little. "What? Why? What could that possibly improve?"

"Well, I think the idea is that the family needs to be as cohesive as possible right now. You could help with things."

"What things? Plotting against…?" Elizabeth nodded her head at the Queen, upon whose serene head a small crown rested. Her black lace veil chased her skirts to the floor. Her stately pace ensured that all would stop to take notice of her. Elizabeth wondered how she could maintain such control of herself at times like these.

"Not plotting, no," Tom reassured. "Just… you know."

"I do not know."

Tom rolled his eyes, becoming frustrated with his sister. "Lissie, you know what is coming. We simply want you out of harm's way. Should the Queen take it into her mind to blame the closest extension of the Seymours-"

Elizabeth's mouth dropped open. "She would never," she hissed, then checked. The Queen had not turned. "She is more of a queen than that."

Skeptically, then suspiciously, Tom's eyebrows raised. His head cocked to one side. "More of a queen than that?" he echoed. "Interesting choice of words, sister."

"I only meant that the proposition is ridiculous. There is no reason for me to remove myself from the Queen's apartments. That would only invite more scandal against our family. Better for me to keep up appearances."

"I wager Edward will not see it your way," Tom shrugged, then ran a hand over the scruffle on his chin. "He thinks we need all of our pieces out, protecting our Queen, so to speak." He winked at Elizabeth. She felt her stomach sicken.

Swallowing hard, Elizabeth nodded. "Pawns. I understand."

"Not like that," Tom cautioned, putting a hand on her arm. He took a closer look at her. "You all right, Lissie?"

Elizabeth pasted a smile onto the lower half of her face, her eyes remaining cold. She grinned up at him. "Never better." She needed to catch up with the ladies as they rounded the last corner before Anne's apartments. "Is that all, brother? I shall see you later?"

"I am sure there is more," Tom shrugged. "With Edward, there is always more. God knows he won't tell me everything. At least you can understand his thinking, can you not?"

"I suppose." Elizabeth darted a look at the Queen's veil again, watching as it glided around the corner. Nan was in step behind her, then Madge, Mary, Bess, and Elizabeth a few yards behind. "I must go."

"Have a good day serving with the Queen," Tom smirked, perhaps thinking about making a very tactless joke, but as usual not quick enough to actually execute it.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Mmm. Perhaps I shall ask her opinion on the best method for family unity while supplanting a queen." Tom's face registered momentary shock before he caught Elizabeth's dry tone, and he gave her a warning look before she rounded the corner.

The day's end came, and the ladies were dismissed. Elizabeth entered the Seymour family outer chambers and was struck at how dead and heavy the rooms were. Thick drapes pulled tight across the windows kept out any trickle of late-afternoon sun, heavy dark carpets covered the stone floors, and enormous dusty books littered nearly every surface. How did Jane survive in this, day in and day out? Elizabeth would rather jump out a window than sit in these apartments all day. One of her father's servants bid her spin around and checked her hands. _For what, a concealed blade? What on earth is this family coming to?_ Edward's paranoia seemed to be heightening. He had always been a grasping, anxious person, but this was ridiculous. The servant waved her through the inner door toward the presence chamber.

Elizabeth resisted the urge to turn and bolt out of the room as soon as she entered it. It would not have mattered, anyway; Tom closed the door swiftly, standing in a spot behind her that she had not even seen. She jumped at the sound of wood smashing against wood. Tom bolted the door. _More like Edward every day_, Elizabeth thought sadly.

Jane sat in a plush chair at the opposite end of the room, back straight, hands folded in her lap. Elizabeth could not help but notice how beautifully she was dressed: was that a new gown? Jane's blonde ringlets cascaded down her back and over her shoulders; a tiny pearl diadem perched on her head like a crown. Her low-cut gown was filled in with a sweet white partlet that was edged in lace, and split at the front so that the King could see just enough of her to make him sweat. Her stiff lace cuffs were lovely and obviously expensive. The gown, though, was a rust-red, which Elizabeth thought a poor choice. The Queen could wear red. Jane Seymour could not. She looked as though she had a touch of jaundice.

Edward crossed in front of Jane, hands clasped behind his back, looking regretful. "Lissie," he said in a syrupy voice, "am I to understand that you refuse to remove yourself from the Queen's service?"

Elizabeth looked from Jane to Tom, who shot back a guilty glance, and then raised her eyes back to Edward. All the tension and secrecy, for this? Was this really what this was all about? "I am Her Majesty's lady-in-waiting," she said, as though Edward was stupid. "No, I will not remove myself."

"She will not be Queen for long," Edward raked his hand through his hair as he spoke, clearly thinking her the stupid one. "You've no need to serve her any longer."

"She is still the Queen," Elizabeth whispered, infuriated. "I cannot just leave."

"Have you some loyalty to her that we should know of?" Edward mocked.

"No." Elizabeth looked at the floor. "But she is the Queen," she repeated again. It was simple to her. "… is she not?"

"The King has told Master Cromwell that he considers his marriage null and void, and thus she ceases to be Queen, officially," Sir John interjected from another chair. Jane had remained silent all this time, watching Lissie steadily.

Annoyed, Edward acknowledged his father's comment. "Queen or not, she is not your focus, Lissie," he lectured. "Your place is here. For whatever Jane needs."

Lissie looked at bedecked Jane and raised her eyebrows. "I think Jane looks quite well-managed without me."

Edward advanced on her as though he would strike her. He took her by the elbows. "Never disrespect your sister again," he hissed. "She will be Queen of England, and you had best know your place."

"I know it," Lissie sneered back, wrenching out of her brother's grasp. "I have always known it, and I will always. But she is not Queen, and I took an oath, to serve Queen Anne unless she dismisses me, for the duration of her reign. I must serve that at least in body if I do not in spirit."

"It will do no harm," Tom offered from where he lounged against the wall, drinking a cup of wine.

"We need all the members of this family focused on our task," Edward threw back, not bothering to look at his younger brother. "Lissie included, oath or no oath."

"I will not quit the Queen's service unless I am destined for Wolf Hall," Elizabeth maintained. "I will not. I apologize, Edward, but I will not."

This time, Edward did raise his hand. "You foolish little-"

Lissie stepped back. "God's sake, Edward!" She shouted. "Direct your anger toward our father where it belongs!" A moment of stunned silence overtook the room. Jane's countenance did not change. _What happened to my sweet sister? _Realizing what she had just said, Elizabeth spun on her heel and rushed for the door. She had it unlatched and cracked open before Edward caught her, shoving the door closed and pushing the side of her face against it.

"Never speak to me thus again, Lissie, do you understand me?"

"Yes," Elizabeth ground out. "Let me go."

"You had better reconsider your attitude," Edward hissed in her ear. "We shall talk again soon, my sister." He backed away from her, leaving Lissie to push one palm against the side of her head as she fumbled with the door latch, opened it again, and whirled round it into the outer chamber. As the door slammed behind her, she caught one last glimpse of the Seymour family conference: Sir John watching as uselessly as ever; Tom taking things a little less seriously than everyone else; Jane's expression bland as she sat in state like a queen, beautiful and golden, with not one worthwhile thought in her head. Edward's dark silhouette, standing in a battle stance, cut the room in two. Lissie's chin quivered as she wondered not only what had happened to her sweet sister, but where her family had gone.

ii.

Not for the first time in his life, George Boleyn wondered why his father was manhandling him. "I am coming, father, there is no need to drag me," George muttered, attempting to pry his upper arm from his father's iron grip. Despite his advanced years, Thomas Boleyn was much stronger than he looked. "And would you mind telling me where we are going?"

Wiltshire rolled his eyes, as though George was a fool for not knowing where they were going. "Your uncle has decided to pay us a visit, what luck we have."

"Uncle Norfolk?" A little chill ran over George. Thomas Howard was here? That could mean nothing good.

This earned George a slight arm-twisting. "Of course, Uncle Norfolk," he mocked his son. "What other uncle do you have?"

These were the moments that George loved. A cheeky smile spread across his face. "Well, there are your brothers William and John, and then of the Howards, there is Uncle Thomas, Uncle Edmund, and Uncle William-"

"And are any of those Dukes? Are any of those peers? Lord High Treasurers? Earls Marshal?"

George sighed a little. "No, sir."

"Uncle Norfolk is the only uncle that matters, George. He has showed up here unannounced. He has not presented himself to your sister. Imagine what that means."

"Is Anne coming?"

Wiltshire shook his head. "Best to leave her to her own affairs."

If George was not mistaken, this was an affair of Anne's own interest, but he said nothing. Excluding her from a family conference was a significant decision on his father's part. As they entered Norfolk's outer chamber, Wiltshire released his son and applied what George liked to call his generous smile. George had always thought his father looked more like a hawk when he smiled like that than an affable courtier, but it was really not George's place to say so.

Servants bustled around, hanging tapestries, pouring wine, straightening bookshelves and rugs. Thomas Howard stood at one end of the room, directing that this tapestry or that Bible should be moved a little to the left. He saw his brother-in-law and nephew coming, but he did not acknowledge them. Wiltshire came closer and closer until Norfolk was forced to look at him. "Morning, Wiltshire," he said steadily.

"Your Grace," Boleyn gritted back. It irked his father, George knew, to be father-in-law to the King of England and to still be forced to defer to Thomas Howard. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

Norfolk looked Boleyn over and then smiled and shook his head as though out of pity. "Shall we?" He gestured toward his private office and, without waiting for a response from either man, led the way.

George threw the door closed behind him. "Good morning, Uncle," he tried.

Norfolk smiled at George. Personally, he liked his nephew. He thought that if George could get out from under his father's thumb, he would have a chance to really make something of himself in this court. Unfortunately, that was as likely to happen as Anne bearing a son at this point. "George," he said cheerfully, flopping into a large bearskin chair. "How fare you, my boy? How's your wife?"

"She is a woman," George smiled languidly. "How are any of them?"

Thomas Howard threw his head back and let out a bearlike laugh. His very tempestuous relationship with his own wife, the Duchess, was no secret. "God, it is true," Norfolk chuckled, slapping his knee. "Women. Impossible to live with. Impossible to live without. My advice, boy, is to find one that wants nothing more than the pleasures of the flesh, one whose company you enjoy, and keep her in good state. And whatever you do, do not marry her."

"I shall keep that in mind," George smiled. "May I sit?" He gestured at another chair, glowing a little at his uncle's obvious preference of him over his grand father.

"Sit, sit," Norfolk waved a hand carelessly. A very discreet maid had slipped into the room and handed each man a goblet of wine. It smelled of flowers and spices. Norfolk had quite expensive taste; it had been he, not Thomas Boleyn, who had taught George how to dress and present himself in company. "Please tell me you've got your wife in bud, George."

George lolled his head back against the chair, raising his eyes heavenward. "God help me," he groaned. "I think she is barren."

His uncle raised an eyebrow skeptically in a gesture that said, Now George, are you telling me the whole truth? "Are you doing your duty?"

"As often as anyone could wish!" George defended. It was true. "She is an attractive enough woman. I do not mind it."

"Just don't be off wasting your seed elsewhere, do you hear?" Norfolk gestured with his glass. His face grew serious. "Enjoyment aside, you need an heir. You've been married ten years. She was a very young girl when you married her, but she is much less young now, and still nothing."

"Ughhh," George sighed again, and then nodded thoughtfully. "I shall put myself to the task, uncle. Maybe I have neglected her."

"Easy to do," Norfolk shrugged. "Myself, I made sure to get some children off my woman before I let myself stray. But I tell you, when I married Liss… nineteen years old, she was beautiful, beautiful, I can't tell you. I was mad for her. Broke her betrothal to someone else and took her for myself. I would have rather seen her dead on the ground than with someone else's ring on her finger. As always, though… things change. Who can blame me? My wife did not stay young forever, they never do, and then there was Bess. Simple, uncomplicated, Bess. You do what you want, George," Norfolk added, coming out of his reverie, "but get to the business of getting an heir. Jane needs a child in her belly. Get a physician, make sure she is capable. A baby in the cradle next spring, and you can separate from her entirely if you wish, take a mistress, God knows it would be the least of our scandals. Lots of men do it. Not every married couple stays on good terms like your parents." Norfolk held up his goblet in a toast, which George mirrored and Thomas Boleyn, watchfully silent until now, did the same after a moment, unsure if Norfolk meant his comment as a compliment or an insult. "To love. To marriage. To… heirs."

"Hear, hear." George drained his cup.

"Now, about heirs." Suddenly Norfolk was all business. "Thomas, your daughter holds the fortune of your family, and to some extent the Howards on the whole, in her hands. Or more specifically, in her belly. She miscarried when, the last time?"

"January."

"Has the king visited her bed?"

"Not to my knowledge, my lord." Boleyn shook his head.

Norfolk shook his head also. "Four months and nothing? How can a man expect…" he trailed off. The question and its answer hung in the air: the king did not expect an heir from her. He was through with her. Norfolk cleared his throat. "How does he treat her in general?"

"With respect… but he avoids her." Boleyn looked uneasy.

"They barely speak," George corrected him. "He never speaks to her outside formal occasions."

"How different… remember how it was, ten, eight, God, even two years ago? It took him years to fall out of love with Katherine."

"I think," George mused, uninvited, "that the types of love were perhaps different. Even when Katherine was young. His love for Anne was obsessive. Perhaps he finds it more difficult to reconcile all the trouble he went through to have her with the fact that she has not given him a son, and now that the chase is over and there is no excitement, his fire for her has…" George snapped his fingers.

"And what has she done about this?" Norfolk directed the question at Boleyn.

The white hair on Wiltshire's head flared and resettled as he shook his head. "She never expected this, truth be told. She has jumped this way and that to avoid alienating him further, and she has learnt to swim with the political tide with greater ease. At first she was very confrontational, but now she has retreated within herself. Her face bears much less emotion than it once did. She just hopes to live on amiable terms with him, but," Boleyn allowed, "she is the same person she has always been. There is no reason to believe that she will never again have a petulant or willful moment with the King."

"And what of Jane Seymour?"

George sighed. He flipped one hand over in the air. "He's besotted. Like with Anne, but more reverent, since Jane is such a cherub. He claims to love and worship her, but if she gave in to him, it would be over within an hour. She has no wit and no personality. It takes a woman like Anne to hold his attention and interest, but he seems to be turning naturally toward a woman unlike Anne."

"Will she give in to him?"

Boleyn shook his head. "About as likely as Anne doing so ten years ago. Not only does she have her family coaching her, but they are following the example that we set." He wiped a hand over his face and took a swig of wine. "She sends back the gifts, pleads her honour all the time, and he respects her for it. She is all sanctimoniousness. Where Anne had education and a sharpness of mind, Jane has soft words and clasped hands."

"He will tire of that in a week," Norfolk said dismissively.

"But he wants what is between her legs, and he will not get it, and thus we are stranded." George plunked his goblet down on the arm of his chair, the clanking signaling to the maid to bring more. As she filled his cup, George continued, "why he cannot see that it is all the same on the inside, I will never know. Must he really go through the trouble of an annulment and marriage _every_ time a woman refuses to fuck him?" The maid cringed visibly at his crude words. "Apologies," George tossed over his shoulder as she retreated.

"Philosophy aside, George," Boleyn said patiently, "the trouble is that Jane is causing problems in the marriage. Anne cannot control her, as Jane never attends on Anne anymore. Anne cannot control Henry, as Henry never speaks to her anymore. For her to do either of these things, she would need to regain her influence, and without improvement in the marriage, that cannot happen. She cannot force anything for fear of angering Henry further. A son would fix everything, but there is no hope of that, as Henry will not kiss her lips, much less share her bed."

"Even would he…" George trailed off, and then spoke the truth in a low voice. "Nine months is time that we do not have."

"Would anyone mind explaining to me why no one informed me of any of this?" Norfolk demanded, his voice steady.

"The matter has progressed rapidly over the past few months, in such a way that it was difficult to see until just recently," Boleyn explained. "Now that you are here, my lord," he added deferentially to smooth Norfolk's feathers, "what would you suggest we do?"

"I do not think there is much that can be done," Norfolk answered frankly.

"Perhaps if we get rid of Mistress Seymour-"

"How?" George snorted. "Half the country thinks we poisoned Catherine and are trying to kill Mary. Surely. What is one more?"

"I did not mean get rid of her, in that sense. I meant, injure her reputation with Henry in some way. Perhaps if it was known she gave herself to a young man…" Boleyn raised his eyebrows at George. "A young man who was also bored with his wife… Perhaps she makes a sport of enchanting married men?"

George gaped at his father. "Are you mad? Steal the king's sweetheart? Obviously _you_ place no value in keeping a male heir," he huffed.

"Under the influence of wine, who could blame you? She and your wife share the same hair colour-"

"Enough." Norfolk held up a hand. "What you both need to realize is that this has nothing to do with her. If she were ruined, where do you think he would turn? Not back to Anne. He would just find another young lady to worship. It has nothing to do with Jane; it is Henry. He will never be a faithful husband. He has never been a faithful husband. I have been at this court a very long time. As much as he loved Katherine when he married her, and he _did_ love her," he said pointedly to George, "he had seduced and bedded my wife's aunt within the year. Men are unfaithful; that is not the issue. But he was so taken with Anne and she held him for so long that now he has it in his head that when he wants something, particularly a matrimonial change, he shall have it. He prefers to have a wife than a mistress, now that he knows he has a choice. If Jane were removed from the picture, he would replace her with someone else. He will not be faithful to her either. His appetite for novelty was high before; it is only increasing now."

George held up his hands. "How can the King be changed?"

Norfolk shook his head and said nothing.

"We have come so far," Boleyn whispered, the fear evident in his voice. "We cannot lose now."

"Is he still amicable with you both?"

"Yes, to an extent," George nodded. "But also with the Seymours."

Norfolk sighed and ran a hand through his hair, which needed trimming. "She needs to be sure she is doing nothing wrong. His grounds for getting rid of her, should he go through with it, will probably be some legal technicality. Some doctrinal error… something." Norfolk kicked at the fringe of his Persian rug. "Cranmer will see to it."

"Cranmer is our ally," Boleyn protested. "He is Anne's partisan."

"It matters not at all. He will go with the wind. The king is his patron now. I am not saying that he will like it," he corrected himself, "but he will do it. If the choice comes between his archbishopric and his queen, you know which one he will sacrifice. Not to mention he is Cromwell's man."

"Everyone is Cromwell's man," Boleyn muttered.

"As were you once, were you not?" Norfolk pointed out. "I always knew he would be trouble. Cannot have laymen doing the work of nobles." The duke shook his head. "Anne was so keen on him. 'Master Cromwell is so innovative, so worldly, so intelligent,' she would chirp. He has no sense of honour. He is probably drafting the annulment documents as we speak. See how well they get along then."

"They have already fallen out," George reminded him, "an argument here or there over the past year, and then one day last week they apparently had another row."

"Then she is finished." Norfolk's tone insinuated there was nothing that could help her. "Cromwell is the king's right hand. Might as well spoon-feed him supper. She really had a shouting match with him?" he inquired, as though he could not believe it.

"From what I understand," George nodded.

"Has she lost her wits?" Norfolk was serious.

Boleyn looked solemn too. "She is not herself."

"She is exhausted," George agreed. "She fought for a long time. She is tired."

"I shall call on her later," Norfolk decided. "We shall see what I see. Perhaps something can yet be done."

"How long will you stay at court?" George asked.

"Into the early summer, I should think. When the court moves, perhaps I shall go back home for the summer. Bess is there." Norfolk smiled.

"Mayhap I shall go home for the summer too," George mused. "I should hate to leave the culture of the court, though. Perhaps I could enlist a musician to come spend the summer with Jane and I. A merry trio we might be." He smiled to himself, a private smile. "Maybe by the end of the summer, Jane will be nice and plump with my boy, and we can return for Parliament an amicable pair."

"That's the spirit, boy," Norfolk commended him. "Make whatever music you need, just get an heir. Now if you will excuse me, I need to finish setting things to rights here." He rose; the Boleyns did with him. He saw them to the door.

Despite the fact that they had returned to a kinder subject, Boleyn's tone cut across the congenial farewells that they said at Norfolk's office door. "Will you stand by us?" he asked baldly.

Norfolk was taken aback. He stared at his brother-in-law for a moment. "Begging your pardon?"

"Whatever happens. If she has a baby in her belly tomorrow or is in a convent in Scotland this time next week. Will you stand by us?"

The duke laughed. "Thomas. Do not be ridiculous." He rolled his eyes privately at George, bid them good day, and closed the door behind them.

George and Thomas Boleyn looked at each other. "You may notice," Thomas said under his breath, in a tone in which George thought he could detect just a hint of fear, "that he failed to answer my question."

iii.

Lissie held the scrap in her hand and glared at it. For the second time that day, she was being summoned to meet with her family – well, Jane, to be precise. She had just changed into her nightshift and unplaited her hair, and was ready for bed. Shrugging into a dressing gown, she cinched the sash at her waist and pulled on a thicker cloak, twisted her hair into a knot and made for her sister's rooms. She did not much care to make herself presentable. Next Queen of England or not, Jane was only her sister.

Relief flooded the younger Seymour sister when she entered Jane's bedchamber to find her sister waiting for her alone. She had half expected that Edward would be sitting with Jane, ready to admonish Elizabeth again or even vent his anger for her comment earlier that day. Jane was sitting at the foot of her large bed, hers because she shared it with no one. It had been a secret gift from the king, and Edward had dictated that since Henry had showed such generosity to Jane, he clearly intended for her to bed alone – hence the removal of the elder Seymour sister from the ladies-in-waiting. The blonde woman, nearly three years Lissie's senior, perched on the edge of the bed, white fluffy down coverings beneath her as though Jane was an angel lounging on a cloud. The quiet maid who had let Lissie into the bedchamber closed the door silently behind her, and the two sisters looked at one another.

Surprisingly, Jane spoke first. "Lissie, I want you to know that I did not request you be removed from the queen's ladies-in-waiting." Her brown eyes held Lissie's gaze steadily. "You must understand that despite my circumstances, I have little control over any affair of this family… you and I both know who steers the helm."

Wondering if that was supposed to pass as an apology, Lissie noted Jane's manner. She had clearly prepared for this meeting, sitting perfectly in the middle of the bed as though in state, not rising to greet her sister. "Thank you. But I must ask – why did you not stand up for me in front of our brothers earlier? Control or no, I could have used assistance. Edward is all but a wolf these days, Jane, you know that."

Jane giggled like a girl, covering her mouth with one hand, and nodded. "Yes, I know, but I must confess that it is nice to occasionally have respite from being the lamb." Lissie joined the laughter, trying to understand Jane's position, and although she could not understand exactly the quality of Jane's life daily, she would give Jane rest and understanding. It could not be a joy, she knew, to spend that much time with Edward. Giggling, Lissie plucked a brush from the vanity table and sat down beside Jane on the bed. She pulled a handful of Jane's waist-length blonde hair toward her, going to work on it carefully, gently. She and Jane had always brushed one another's hair. Jane sighed as Lissie combed through her wavy mane, closing her eyes. "Thank you. It has been long since anyone has done that for me. Not that I cannot do it myself," she added hastily, "but I do miss having a companion. Truth be told, Lissie, I… I miss being among the other ladies. I would rather join you, if… if circumstances were different." She gave a minute shake of the head, almost regretfully.

Lissie had no inkling what she was to say to that. "Remember when we used to play queen?" She asked, gently running the brush from the top of Jane's head all the way through its ends. "At Wolf Hall? All day, we played queen. Nothing more to do, no strife nor peril nor tension. Those days were so beautiful."

Tipping her head back wistfully, Jane smiled. "I recall. Those days were very beautiful. Out in the sun in our best dresses, weaving wildflowers into circlets and making jewelry out of ferns and leaves. And now look where we are," she whispered.

"Look where _you_ are," Lissie responded quietly. "I take no credit. You have accomplished this, not I."

"You are wrong. We are both wrong. It was Edward." Jane snickered a little. Lissie smiled too, running her fingers through Jane's hair, the waves getting softer and looser with every brushstroke. She remembered Jane's hair flying behind her in the green fields as she leapt and danced, taller and prettier than Lissie, as the younger had always thought. But Lissie was the quick-witted, argumentative, fiery antidote to Jane's soft, delicate mild-mannered personality. They had shared gowns, Lissie always angry because she never seemed to get to choose her own fabrics, and because Jane wore them out before Lissie became their keeper. Now Jane would become Queen of England, and Lissie could not say that she had any slight pang of jealousy for her elder sister's position.

"So it was."

Jane's smile softened, and looked a little sad. She kept her head back, her eyes closed. Jane had gotten more beautiful as she had gotten older, after having grown back into her features during late adolescence. She pressed her lips together, and whispered, "I expect queenship will be even lonelier than it is to be queen-in-waiting."

The fear and timidity in her sister's voice brought a fierce reaction from Lissie, more vigorous than she had expected. Jane was truly a kind-natured, sweet woman. It angered Elizabeth to see the cold barricade she built around her countenance as a result of Henry, and Edward, and their father. They had robbed Jane of the freedom to be herself, and she had not even been crowned yet. What would happen to her sister when she was Henry's wife? Lissie swallowed the lump in her throat, smoothed a stray curl behind Jane's ear, and vowed, "I will never allow you to be lonely. You will always have me."

A little surprised, Jane sat upright and turned toward Elizabeth. "Thank you, Lissie. I have missed having you beside me. In truth, I…" Jane trailed off and whispered, "I am almost afraid of Edward at times. Lissie, I know that you wish to stick to your commitments, but please, reconsider withdrawing before this affair goes much farther. Circumstances will only worsen for you. Edward will not make it easy. And I – I need you, truly. I think not to instruct you on how to behave, but I ask you, please, reconsider."

Lissie softened, hearing the plaint in Jane's words. "I would, Jane, I would, but I just cannot. It is naught to do with you, I just cannot retreat and give everyone cause to speculate. Think what good a little decorum will do for our image after you have a crown on your head." She paused, then: "And I think we both know that it will not be long."

Jane smiled a little, uncertain. "I understand. But if I need you, Lissie, if it is urgent, know that I will summon you. You are, after all, my sister."

"I know, and I would never abandon you. I shall sometimes give you rest from being the lamb." Lissie smirked. "But you cannot blame me for upholding my oath."

"No. I cannot." The sisters avoided one another's gaze, both aware that Jane did not say that she _did_ not blame Elizabeth.

Lissie cleared her throat. "I should for my bed…"

"Yes, I should too. Oh, the king promised to send me some fabric samples and a seamstress. You will come and help me with that, will you not? I am near hopeless with fashion." Jane gave a generous smile.

_All I know about fashion, I learned from Anne Boleyn_, Lissie thought sadly, but agreed. She arranged Jane's hair over her shoulders. "I shall begin pondering styles and shades immediately." She kissed Jane's cheek and rose from the bed. Jane stayed seated, watching her sister. Lissie felt nauseated when, several moments later, it became clear that Jane expected some sort of formal farewell. _God in heaven, does she want me to curtsey before her?_ Lissie asked herself, sickened by memories of both blonde sisters sweeping each other grandiose bows in the sun-flooded meadows of Wolf Hall. Quickly, Lissie bid Jane goodnight and turned her back on her sister, rushing from the room before Jane could see how unsafe and uncomfortable she had suddenly become.

Jane watched her sister flee the room, then turned her head silently to the left as Edward emerged from behind Jane's dressing screen. "Do you think she suspected my presence?"

"No."

"Nor I. Well done, Janey."

"Well done? It was a conversation." She turned her head away from Edward, gathering her brushed hair into one fist and clenching it tightly. Edward's presence was suffocating.

"Come, Janey, give yourself the credit you deserve. You injected all the right statements. It was beautiful."

Jane smiled at the compliment. "Thank you."

"And yet," Edward rambled on as though she had not even spoken, "not the desired result. I think she has a bit too much respect and affection for Anne. Why she would want to go on demonstrating her loyalty to her rather than you is unfathomable. We need to keep a close watch. If it is necessary we will remove her and shut her up in Wolf Hall until Anne is gone."

"I would prefer her here," Jane said meekly. "I meant what I said. I do need my sister."

"She is not your sister," Edward stared her down, "for all purposes, if she cannot fulfill your needs during this crucial time."

_So are you still my brother? You have as much concern for my requests as she does. Much less, actually,_ Jane retorted silently. When would she find the courage to say these words? "Well, then I suppose Tom will have to help me choose my new gowns."

Edward snorted and smiled perfunctorily at her. "Fret not. As queen you will learn to be much more self-governing." _You mean lonely._ "Follow Anne's example: she would never need help choosing gowns, or books; that sort of independence will come to you."

Jane bit her lip, thinking it curious that Edward would encourage her to be more like Anne when it was clear that Jane's whole appeal for Henry was that she was so different from Anne in every way. Nonetheless, she nodded. Edward looked her over, curious.

"Are you well?"

"Yes."

"You look befuddled."

"No, brother. I am fatigued."

"Understandable. You need your rest. I shall leave you." Edward offered her his hand and raised her from the bed, led her to the side of it and helped her in, pulling the coverings over her and fluffing her pillow. Vaguely, Jane felt like a full-sized doll. She wondered when everyone would stop petting her. To have a brother like Edward fawn over her so blatantly was unnerving. Jane barely refrained from cringing as Edward kissed her hand and bade her, "Goodnight… my queen." Jane glanced up, startled, and caught Edward's wink before he doused the tapers and swept out of the room. The door closed behind him.

Sleep crept up Jane's body, begging her to submit as would a lover, but try as she would, Jane could not give in. Lying still on her side like a statue, she stared straight ahead. She thought about her wedding gown, how it would be the most beautiful gown she had ever seen, but that she had not the first idea how to design it. She thought about her father making love to her sister-in-law, Cat, and wondered how they could betray Edward, their own kith and kin that way. She thought what that sort of emotional pain could do to a person. She thought about the sensation of Henry's tongue in her mouth, and the fluttering it had caused in her stomach, and the nausea that churned into her throat when Henry's raven-haired wife floated through the door and found them. She thought of consummation, and wondered if Henry would expect her to know what she was doing, and whether they would be in this very bed, which Henry had presented to her with a smooth sideways smile and a gentle hand on her waist. She thought of the countless days and nights she had spent alone in this room, and how different it might be to have a companion, any companion – even if that companion tired of her, perhaps she would be quickly in foal and then she would have a companion that would never tire of her. She thought of her sister's wedding, the fear in Lissie's eyes, the relief the following morning when she whispered to Jane that her new husband was impotent. Mostly, though, she thought about the difference in the laughter of she and her sister tonight from those golden afternoons in simple unbejeweled gowns, waving sticks as scepters and crowning one another Queen of England with wreaths of daisies in the flower-dusted meadows of Wolf Hall.

iv.

Norfolk pushed his way into his niece's apartments without introduction, without telling Anne he was coming. She glanced up in surprise from her seat in the corner of the room, where she was embroidering a square of linen, and swallowed as though he had come to read her death warrant. She nervously got to her feet. "Uncle," she said cautiously.

"Anne. Your Majesty." He smiled, threw her ladies a glare that told them to leave the premier peer of the realm alone with his niece. They scattered obediently and filed into an adjacent chamber, no doubt pressing their ears to the heavy wooden door. "How are you?"

Anne still looked skittish, as though he had come to make her recite Latin prose that she had not memorized. "Not pregnant," she responded defensively.

"I know." He almost chuckled at her harsh reaction, but there was nothing funny about it.

"Then why ask?" Her tone was challenging. Her face was like a death mask. Boleyn had been right. She was not herself.

Norfolk sighed. "My niece, I was asking about you. Not your belly. How are _you_, Anne?"

Standing opposite him, looking poised and ready to strike, Anne softened as she held his gaze, and Norfolk watched her eyes fill with tears. Her lower lip trembled. "I am not well."

"Come now, no tears," he managed in what he hoped to be a comforting tone. He moved toward her, gestured for her to sit, which she did without argument. "How fares your marriage?"

She shook her head. "Surely you know." Norfolk nodded once, slowly. "He will rid himself of me, I fear," she whispered, eyes still thick and glassy with unshed tears. "I cannot believe it has happened thus."

"It may not," Norfolk soothed, with as little gruffness as he could manage. "Now, you know the state of my marriage. My wife and I have not been able to reconcile for many years past. I am in love with another woman. I do respect my wife, in many ways, and what is more important is that she is the mother of my children. You are the mother of Henry's child, and he went to much greater lengths to get you than most men could ever dream of. Many marriages come to resemble mine: the two people fall out of love, and may even end with a loathsome opinion of one another, but they can achieve a peaceful coexistence. You may not like it, but this is human nature. Perhaps this is what God intends for you."

"He does not seem to have any good will toward me. I think he means to replace me," Anne protested, sniffling.

"It is early stages of difficulty in the marriage," Norfolk reminded her. "Things will calm down. He will soften. You shall see."

She nodded a little, hope brightening her face. She looked into her uncle's old, wise face. "Perhaps you are right." She managed a small smile.

Sensing her true comfort, Norfolk felt like crying himself. He pitied her, because she was right to protest. Henry would never countenance a situation that made him as unhappy as his second marriage clearly did. He would replace her. He would not consider coexistence. But Anne would drive herself mad with worry were she left to her own anxieties, and Norfolk was happy that he could give her even a moment of respite. He slid to his knees in front of her, reached for her hands, clasped them, a familial gesture in which he had not engaged many times in his life. "You have done so well and come so far, and put forth more effort, and acted more in the interest of your family than most people could hope to," he said steadily, looking into her face and pushing down the twinge of guilt he felt at raising her spirits, knowing that they would ultimately be crushed again – and before much longer. "You must learn that life cannot be a fairytale. I know you know it already, but you must accept it and not rail against it. Devote your energies to areas of your life that you can control and which will enrich you. I know you spend a great deal of time conversing with God," he added before she could defend her piety, "but you have not seen your daughter in months, I believe. That would do you both well, and perhaps your husband too, to remind him of the beautiful effects of your union. It might bring peace to all of you. I respect my wife and turn wistful more each moment I spend with my children," Norfolk half-lied. He was not wistful for his wife, except perhaps for their young, golden days together. He had Bess, and that was what he needed, but Anne would not be able to accept any explanation in that direction.

"I should send for her," Anne nodded, a faraway look in her eyes. "I miss her."

"A young girl needs her mother. Even more than a young boy does." Norfolk cringed at mentioning the son that the royal couple did not have, but Anne failed to even notice, so he plowed on to another subject. "And perhaps… you could speak with Master Cromwell."

Anne snatched her hands back, nearly jumping out of her skin. "Why should I do that?"

"Attempt to smooth his feathers with those nimble fingers of yours," Norfolk inclined his head toward her, missing the horrified expression that flashed across her face. "If you two can reach some sort of mutually agreeable solution, believe me, niece, affairs will be much easier for you."

Norfolk could not have known the burning in his niece's chest as she forced herself to nod back. "Yes, true…" she sought the correct words. "I shall attempt to reach a mutually agreeable solution with Master Cromwell."

"See," the duke patted her hands. "All will be well. He lifted himself back into his chair. "These old bones, Your Majesty, forgive me," he winked at her, to which she smiled in return, a real smile. He held out his hands again, an offering. "Shall we pray?"

Smiling gratefully, Anne nodded and placed her delicate white hands in his. She bowed her head, and he his, praying fervently in Latin, asking God to guide her and protect her. Anne squeezed her eyes closed and attempted to at least clear her mind of any lewd or guilty thoughts in this time that she was supposed to spend conversing with the Lord. Norfolk squeezed her hands, bringing his prayer to an end, and Anne mirrored his actions as they crossed themselves, holding one another's gaze. "Keep me in your prayers, please, uncle," Anne requested softly.

"Of course." Norfolk rose, letting his niece remain seated, and tipped her chin back to look at her face one last time. "Have faith. No one could have done better than you have. God bless you." He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, bowed, and left her, not waiting for dismissal. In the corridor outside her apartments, he paused a moment and crossed himself. "God have mercy on her."

**UP NEXT: **Anne, Cromwell, and a little Charles Brandon for good measure =)

_Again?_ Cromwell thought, hearing Charles Brandon's footstep in his corridor. As the Duke hit the office threshold, Cromwell favoured him with a small smile. "Morning, Your Grace."

"Beautiful. _Very beautiful_ morning," Suffolk replied, staring levelly at Cromwell.

"Am I to find some meaning in that?" Cromwell asked, noting a figure in one margin of his parchment.

Brandon's face was pinched. "I know not. Do you?"

"No. If wordplay is what you seek, Your Grace, I suggest you locate Master Wyatt. I've no time for riddles."

"It is as much a riddle to me, Cromwell, that those are the very words the Queen just used to describe this morning."

Cromwell glanced up, his mouth twisting into a wry smile. "Were you sharing an amicable breakfast with Her Majesty, Your Grace?"

Brandon rolled his eyes. "No. She was-" he flicked his hand in the air- "traipsing about the palace, coming down the back stairs toward the Hall."

"At this hour? The sun has only just come up."

"Yes. Alone. Clad in a nightgown and dressing robe. And-" Brandon swallowed, his expression distasteful, "barefoot, no less."

Cromwell tried not to let that image form in his head, but noted Brandon's uneasy fidgeting and almost smiled at how unnerved the famous womanizing Duke apparently was at having glimpsed Anne's bare ankles.

Next chapter will hopefully be up soon; it's a shorter one!


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **Hello all, and Merry almost-Christmas! This chapter is pretty short. I'm sorry, I am a very busy young lady these days. I hope to have another up around the New Year. I hope you enjoy this one – we have a little Anne Stanhope happening here! Very exciting. Next chapter will be lots of Anne, and the one after that is much-anticipated by me. Please let me know how you feel about this chapter, if you would be so kind. =)

Anonymous Lover, I am so glad you are enjoying the story, and many, many thanks for your kind remarks on my writing style. I hope you love the Cromwell-Suffolk interaction here. I love writing their conversations. I liken them to a stereotypical modern jock/nerd relationship, where at some point the jock stops referring to the nerd as such and grittingly has to address him as "boss." Ha!

Vinewood, thank you so much for those compliments – I am so flattered. To be told that my story is the best one you've read is unbelievable praise. I am not a teacher or lit student – I recently graduated from a private women's liberal arts college and was a history major there; I created a concentration in Tudor England for myself. I began dreaming of/writing this idea in my junior year, when I was writing a massive study on political faction in the falls of Wolsey and Cromwell. My biggest goal in my story is to make my characters human, as complex as I believe the historical figures to have been, and believable. I've recently begun a new work chronicling Anne and Henry's relationship (based on the actual historical figures, rather than those in this show which I must say really drives me insane at times). It is an attempt to make the pair and their courtship/relationship more real – I am so sick of the "carefully calculated" approach and want to take it on from a fresher, funnier, more intimate angle. We'll see how it goes. Perhaps one day I shall be a real writer. I'm very glad you liked the intimate scene also! I had a lot of difficulty with that – I wanted it to be heated but not pornographic, and just intuitive enough to make my readers sweat without making them feel uncomfortable. I love writing Cromwell's thoughts, Anne's thoughts, everything. The story is about to get way more interesting, too. Please stay aboard and update me on how you are liking things? I appreciate it =)

Anna! I am very pleased you're liking my Lissie! Her interaction with Jane is especially difficult to write – it's like walking on glass for me as a writer to avoid it being cliché, and to keep their discussions appropriately awkward. It's much easier to writer comfortable conversations than uncomfortable ;) Lissie and Gregory WILL meet before the story is over – but only briefly. I have an interesting take on their match which will come out. I am also trying to show the conflict that the different men are having with the course that the situation is taking – Cromwell, Henry, Norfolk, Suffolk in this chapter (just a teeny bit) and others will have scruples, even if it is just a touch. Anne/Cromwell will have a GREAT interaction in Chapter 20, so don't lose faith in me!

Natasha, I like having Suffolk a little thrown and jittery over Anne ;) After all, at some point, wasn't everyone? Thank you for the compliment on the complexity of my characters – that's a huge goal of mine. And I like imparting some humor into my chapters here and there, especially with how men talk about women. I think that's very very similar to how it is today.

Onward…

i.

25 April 1536 – Morning

Red. It was the most beautiful colour she had ever seen.

Anne had stumbled into consciousness early that morning, before the sun even, and stayed at rest. She lay in bed on her back with her hands folded carefully over her stomach. Her nightshift was thin and tangled around her calves, and her hair splayed out in every which way on her pillow, but she remained as still as a corpse, staring toward heaven. She took deep breaths and counted each one. She tried to determine whether she was imagining or actually feeling what she thought she was feeling. Each breath brought her closer to joy and heightened her anxiety of disappointment. Finally, she peeled back the layers of bedlinens and struggled to sitting, then put her feet on the cold floor and stood. Anne plucked at the fabric of her nightshift, clenched her jaw and painstakingly faced the truth.

Red. Yes, red. She was not mistaken, she was not disappointed. She was vindicated. Tears sprang to her eyes and she half-sobbed, half-chuckled in relief, dropping the white linen hem back to her feet. Anne began to drop to her knees right then and there before realizing that that would be insufficient.

Instead she straightened and cast a glance about her, her eyes settling on her red dressing gown. She straightened her nightshift and stabbed her arms into the dressing gown, tying it as she made for the door of her bedchamber. It occurred to her that she might want to put on a pair of slippers at least, but the discomfort of her bare feet against the stone seemed a token of her gratitude to the Lord. She threw open her bedroom door.

The few ladies that had already assembled in her presence chamber curtsied as their queen burst through the door unannounced. "Good morning!" Anne chirped as she flew past them. Hastily, and with visible confusion, Nan rose to accompany her mistress as she appeared to be embarking on a journey, and the others followed suit, but Anne held up a hand. "Tend to your duties, ladies. I shall return shortly." With that she glided through the opposite door and vanished from their sight.

In Anne's outermost chamber, a quiet serving maid opened the door to the corridor solemnly and bowed. "Thank you!" Anne touched the girl's shoulder and breezed into the hallway, smoothing a hand over her very tangled hair.

The palace was on the whole still asleep as the first drops of pale sunlight fought their way through the glass-paned windows and rested on the gray floor, but Anne had scarcely felt more alive. She barely kept herself from sprinting as she hastened through the corridors as though driven by some godly mission. The few faces that she saw looked rather surprised to see their queen in such a state, roaming the halls at such an hour, but paid her respect regardless. Anne could have kissed each one of them, regardless of their skeptical expressions, so elevated were her spirits. When she reached the back stairs, Anne lifted the front of her nightshift and dressing robe - heaven forbid she trip on this glorious morning - and trotted down the stairs, mindless that her dressing gown's sash was loosening.

Charles Brandon had arisen early also, and had already gone to the stableyard to inform the pages that he and his wife would be riding out before noon. He glanced at the figure descending the stairs, glanced away naturally, and then checked himself and looked back. Yes, it was the queen. Brandon stopped in his spot. Where was she going? Was she fleeing? He had half a mind to intercept her physically and throw her back into her rooms, but one scan of her glowing countenance confirmed that she was not in terrified flight from the palace. Brandon was frozen as he watched her gliding down the stairs, her red dressing gown loosening around her thin form. He opened his mouth as though to speak – to greet her? Scold her? – but nothing came forth. As Anne hit the bottom step she looked up, saw him and smiled widely. She all but hopped around the corner from the bottom step to the floor, one hand on the banister to her left, and approached him. Her robe slipped slightly off of one shoulder and took her nightshift with it. Brandon's eye followed the red as it melted over the sharp bump of her shoulder, the bony hardness of her body bared for him to see. She was not soft, not like his Katherine. Not the type of woman one would like to find oneself pressed against in bed. Yet he stared at the expanse of white skin stretching from her long neck to her uppermost arm, where bloody velvet came to its rescue, for longer than a moment. Catching himself, he glanced away guiltily.

Anne's arms were outstretched as she came toward him, bouncing toward him really, smiling as broadly as he had ever seen. She reached for his hand, which he extended skeptically. She took his rough hand in her two smaller, softer ones and quickly pressed his latest wedding ring to her warm lips. He could feel her dewy breath on the back of his hand, her chin barely a hair's width from his skin. She lowered his hand, smiling. "Good morning, Your Grace," the queen said brightly.

"Your Majesty," he responded cautiously.

"How fares your wife?" If Anne was put off by his tone, she did not show it.

"She is well, Your Majesty, and how are you on this beautiful morning?" He flashed her a perfunctory smile, the same one that had driven dozens of ladies crazy in its day. He was older now, but he had not lost his looks, he fancied. He wondered if she found him physically attractive, then recoiled from the thought. Why on earth should he wonder that? It was not as though he could say as much about her.

Anne seemed uninterested in talking any further, and she had never stopped moving throughout their short exchange. Now she was past him and nearing the head of the stairs down to the Great Hall. For one more panicked second Brandon feared he was about to let the Queen of England escape Henry's wrath, but again her manner shook him. She seemed utterly serene. Frighteningly serene. As he watched her graceful, light step, so different than when she was angry or determined or anxious – one could tell a great deal about Anne from the way she walked, and Brandon had learnt to read her moods based upon her gait – a cold, needling fear pricked at his lower spine. _What in Christ could she possibly be so happy about?_ Brandon bit down on his lower lip.

Anne stopped at his question and turned back toward him, mercifully adjusting the shoulder of her robe at last. Brandon's eye was no longer distracted by her spur of a shoulder. She looked pensive, her eyes lowered, and then up to meet his gaze. "It is beautiful," she agreed, as though in surprise. "It is… very beautiful." Then with a flash of a smile not unlike Brandon's own, she turned so quickly that her tangled hair flew out beside her, and disappeared like a ghost down the stairs.

Charles Brandon stood still, staring after her, still seeing her beatific smile, unable to shake the image of her bare shoulder and the unbroken line of her long neck. At this hour of the morning, half-dressed, mussed hair and all, she had exuded simple radiance and unadorned poise that knocked the breath out of the duke's lungs. A deeper, stronger chill overtook him and he shook himself out of it, setting his face in a scowl and throwing a hard glare at the spot where she no longer stood. He turned his back to the stairs and walked away, ready to carry on with his day and to pretend that he did not just see what he just saw, nor think what he just thought.

ii.

Anne rushed into the chapel, forced the double doors closed behind her and leaned against them, sighing in relief. She looked at the shadowed aisle before her and crossed herself, then, with a great breath, heaved herself upright and began down the walkway to the altar. Her forearms lifted slightly of their own volition, her palms facing the sky. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting her feet guide her, silently pledging her very body and soul for Christ.

Her feet cried out against the freezing cold floor, the cold more bone-chilling in the chapel than anywhere else, thanks to the quality of the marble. The arches of her feet shied away from the stones, but with every painful step and every great breath that she drew, Anne felt the presence of the Lord reaching deeper into her soul.

Instead of kneeling a respectable few feet from the altar, Anne found herself climbing the short steps, removing her dressing robe and slowly, sacredly, lowering herself to the floor. She stretched on her stomach before the crucifix, her arms reaching for Christ, her feet crossed like His own. Her nose and forehead pressed against that same cold marble and she savoured the discomfort, watching a cloud of moisture appear on the floor on every expulsion of breath. She could not think what to say to God.

Finally, at long last, they were once again of one mind. She pressed a kiss to the marble, the same gentle, reverent kiss that she had given to Brandon's wedding ring, to Elizabeth the night that she had held her for the very first time, to Henry's shoulder as they laid together, exhausted, as man and wife. She smiled and briefly squeezed her inner thighs close together, not caring if she had to pay the price for it later.

"Not my will, Oh Lord, but thine."

iii.

The creek of a thick iron hinge which badly needed oil startled Anne Stanhope and she twisted her head sideways, ready to glare at the person who intruded upon her personal time with the Lord. The figure flew through the narrow opening between the doors, turned and closed them, and rested against them. Her heart jumped into her throat when she recognized the waist-length dark hair and long neck of the Queen of England. Had she fallen asleep? How long had she been here? She had never seen anyone in the chapel at this hour, the hour that she had chosen for her own devotions; and certainly not the queen. Anne Stanhope blinked several times, but indeed, it was Anne Boleyn who leant against the doors. From her distant vantage point in the far corner of the back pew, Anne Stahope could note the queen's relieved body language: she looked as though she was seeking sanctuary. Vaguely, Anne Stanhope imagined her own husband chasing the queen with a flaming torch and ropes for her wrists. She glanced at the doors expectantly, but no one came.

With clear effort, the queen stood upright and began down the center aisle at a slow, ceremonial pace. She looked like she was on the way to her nuptials. Anne Stanhope craned her neck forward, peering at the queen from under her thick black veil and trying to make out her silhouette in the dim light through the thick lace. The queen clearly thought herself alone in the chapel, and Anne Stanhope felt as though she should get up and leave out of deference to royalty, but something in the queen's manner stopped her. She looked halfway between tears and ecstasy, her face and palms upturned, and did not so much as cast a glance about herself. Anne Stanhope was completely unnoticed. _Just like in Edward's bed_, she thought to herself with a bitter chuckle.

Even more confusing, the queen looked like she had entered the chapel immediately after rising from her bed. She wore a red dressing gown, not particularly formal, over what appeared to Anne Stanhope's straining eyes to be a plain linen nightshift. Her recognizable dark hair was a tangled mass of curls, unbound, with hint of neither pin nor ribbon. Anne Stanhope glanced toward the chapel doors, wondering if a band of ladies-in-waiting would burst through them to accompany their mistress, but she already knew the answer. Inexplicably, her nerves swelled. She was truly alone with Her Majesty.

The queen reached the front pew and Anne Stanhope waited for her to place her hand on its polished wood back, but instead of sinking into her customary seat, the queen continued toward the great crucifix as though lured by some holy force. She paused a moment at the stairs to the altar, then gathered the red fabric in her hands and ascended the dais. Anne Stanhope's brow furrowed as she twisted her head sideways, craning forward even further: was the Queen of England _barefoot_?

At the top of the stairs, the queen slowly untied the sash of her robe and shrugged out of it. It dropped in a heap at her heels. She sank to her knees on the stone, palms reaching the ground first, the queen's movements as careful and sacred as if she were about to perform a self-sacrifice. Fascinated by what she saw, Anne Stanhope's heart pounded. She threw her veil, as heavy as if she was in mourning, over the crown of her head. Like an excited child, her hands came up and curled themselves around the back of the pew directly in front of her. One unhappy kneeling Anne watched the other.

The queen crawled forward enough for Anne Stanhope to confirm her lack of footwear, at which she shook her head, a footnote to this bizarre display of royal piety. A short space forward, the queen stretched out and lowered herself onto her stomach. She reached above her head, her face pressed mercilessly against the floor, making Anne Stanhope wonder if she was not cold. The spring air was not yet sufficient to warm the mornings in cold palaces such as this. Observing the queen's unmoving form, Anne Stanhope waited for – what? Something, anything. Nothing came. The queen neither moved nor spoke. Anne Stanhope wondered if she should try to go back to her own devotions – God knew she had many sins for which to atone – but could not take her eyes off the queen's sprawled form, a streak of brilliant snow white against the decidedly dismal backdrop of the chapel, her red robe spilling down the altar stairs behind her like a bloodstain. She was so still and utterly quiet that after awhile Anne Stanhope actually began to wonder if she was unwell. She wanted to leave, to push herself to her feet – her knees were screaming from kneeling for so long – and exit the chapel, rush back to her own apartments and, yes, tell her husband what she had just seen. Perhaps he would think her worthy of respect for an hour afterward. But she could hardly move for fear of disturbing the queen and betraying her own presence.

Anne Stanhope's unease increased as the queen's hands curled into fists and she dragged her arms back toward her body, lifted her torso from the floor and sat back on her knees, bare feet crossed. Anne Stanhope hoped that the queen was quite finished with this display; she herself did not much care to stay and see what strange courses it could take or where it might end. Thankfully, after a long moment of kneeling during which the queen's palms touched together only briefly, Anne picked herself up daintily and slipped back into her dressing gown, pulling her long hair out to rest atop it, and descended from the dais as effortlessly as though someone was carrying her.

As the queen padded back up the aisle, cinching and knotting her sash around her waist, Anne Stanhope nearly dove between the pews to avoid being seen. She would probably have been able to stand and curtsy, though, without the queen noticing. As the queen opened one of the double doors enough to slip through, completely unaware of Anne Stanhope's eyes on her, she turned back for one last glance at the host. Then she was gone.

Muttering thanks, Anne Stanhope grimaced as she lifted herself off her knees and eased backward against the pew, trying to stretch her legs a little. Smoothing wrinkles out of her skirt, Anne Stanhope thought what poor fortune she had that Anne Boleyn had more to smile about than she did. She thought of finishing her discussion with the Lord, but suspected that the Queen of England had probably just given Him quite enough to digest for one day. Anne Stanhope stood, a little shaky, and draped her veil back around her face. She crossed the chapel back to the center aisle, placed one hand on the pew, and bowed deeply at the figure of Christ, wondering if Edward was right and the Lord was no more in the crucifix than he was in the rinds of the oranges that his wife so enjoyed eating. Despite her husband's harping on her ridiculous womanish superstition, Anne Stanhope fancied that she should take her chances. One could never be too fastidious toward God. The next time Edward tugged on his wife's veil, mussing her coif just before she left for morning prayers, she would swat his hands away and tell him to leave her be – at least she had the grace to wear shoes to church.

iv.

_Again?_ Cromwell thought, hearing Charles Brandon's footstep in his corridor. As the duke hit the office threshold, Cromwell favoured him with a small smile. "Morning, Your Grace."

"Beautiful. Very beautiful morning," Suffolk replied, staring levelly at Cromwell.

"Am I to find some meaning in that?" Cromwell asked, noting a figure in one margin of his parchment.

Brandon's face was pinched. "I know not. Do you?"

"No. If wordplay is what you seek, Your Grace, I suggest you locate Master Wyatt. I've no time for riddles."

"It is as much a riddle to me, Cromwell, that those are the very words the queen just used to describe this morning." He clearly meant for this sentence to contain a great amount of drama.

Cromwell glanced up, his mouth twisting into a wry smile. "Were you sharing an amicable breakfast with Her Majesty, Your Grace?"

Brandon rolled his eyes. "No. She was-" he flicked his hand in the air- "traipsing about the palace, coming down the back stairs toward the Hall."

"At this hour? The sun has only just come up."

"Yes. Alone. Clad in a nightgown and dressing robe. And-" Brandon swallowed, his expression distasteful, "barefoot, no less."

Cromwell tried not to let that image form in his head, but noted Brandon's uneasy fidgeting and almost smiled at how unnerved the famous womanizing Duke apparently was at having glimpsed Anne's bare ankles. "So, the queen was complimenting the weather." He shrugged.

"No," Brandon shook his head, clearly remembering. "She was… happy. She looked very happy."

Narrowing his eyes, the secretary shrugged as though confused. "Forgive my stupidity, Your Grace, but I do not understand why you are before my desk telling me this. Is she not permited freedom of mood?"

Brandon's jaw clenched. "I simply thought it strange," he said, his voice strained, "that she is suddenly in such good spirits. I wondered if some change in her personal life caused her to feel this happiness. Perhaps a token of good will from the king. Perhaps a reconciliation."

Cromwell sighed and went back to copying figures. "I assure Your Grace that there is no discernible chance of either of those things occurring."

"Then why was she acting as generous and amicable as if Henry had just given her the kingdom all over again? Why did she take my hands and kiss my wedding ring?" He held up his ring as though Cromwell would be able to see proof of Anne's lips there.

"She is half-mad sometimes, you know that," Cromwell responded flatly, his tone engineered to convey his utter lack of concern with the whole situation. For good measure, he added: "Any woman has mood changes and fluctuations that are impossible to control. Never mind a woman as tempestuous as the Queen, and one in as uncomfortable a position as she. It means nothing."

Brandon's face was stony. "All right. It seemed very significant, but," he allowed, a cruel gleam in his eye, "perhaps I am conscious to women's moods due to my own wife." He apparently anticipated that this would earn a wince from Cromwell, but it did no such thing.

"Perhaps." Cromwell did not look up. "If she starts declaring her unbearable cravings for figs or lark stew, call me at once." He waved a hand, dismissing Suffolk.

From his silent unnoticed post in one corner of the room, Mark stared at Cromwell, who could feel his gaze.

"Mark," Cromwell said without shifting his eyes from the parchment before him, "go and find out where the Queen is, what she is doing… and whether she is really barefoot." He made sure to smirk a little, showing Mark what an insignificant detail this was, as he imagined two slender ankles. Very accurately. He knew exactly what they looked like.

Mark got to his feet. "Yes, sir." He was out the door so quickly that Cromwell feared he would catch up to Suffolk in the hallway.

"I want to know every move those feet make for the rest of the day," Cromwell murmured under his breath, drawing a line beneath his column of figures.

So, is anyone a little confused about what was happening here, or was it pretty clear?

UP NEXT:

One beautifully shaped eyebrow arched back at the seamstress's assistant as Nan watched her mistress process what she was being told and fight to compose herself. "I beg your pardon," Anne said, each syllable painfully well-formed. "The royal" emphasis on _royal_ "seamstresses are where?"

The freckled young lady's own brow was knitted with apprehension as she glanced from Anne's shoes to her face and back down again, her facial muscles tense as if preparing to absorb a blow. "They are in Mistress Seymour's apartments, Your Majesty," she all but whispered.

"And," the word stabbed ungracefully at the young girl, "I would assume that they have the bolts of fabric that were recently sent from Venice to the king, and to myself, in their possession in Mistress Seymour's rooms?" The girl nodded. "Mmm. And should Mistress Seymour take it to mind to have some new gowns made of _my_ imported fabrics, I can hardly imagine that they should refuse. Would you think it reasonable to expect that they may use some of the textiles for new gowns for the lady?"

Nodding minutely: "Yes, Madam, I think that a reasonable prediction."

Anne's face was set in harsh, unbecoming lines. "So are they suggesting that Jane Seymour's wardrobe requirements usurp those of the Queen of England?" Nan herself flinched back from the sharp edge of Anne's voice. "Forgive my tone, but you must understand my perspective."

"I do, madam, yes," the assistant responded. "I am sorry. I would be happy to fetch them and tell them that Your Majesty requires their services with all speed."

"You would do me a great favour thus," she sighed, if so angry an exhalation of breath could be called a sigh. "Those who would do well by me seem to be dwindling with remarkable speed." She cast a quick glance at her ladies. "Send them here at once. If they have so much as sliced a ribbon of silk, it will not be a pleasant fitting." Anne flicked one hand in the air, dismissing the assistant, who dropped a quick curtsy and rushed from the room as though Anne would chase her.

Silence drowned the queen and her ladies. Nan, standing closest to her mistress, was the first to venture a glance at her face, and her heart sank when she saw Anne's mottled nose and quivering lower lip. "Majesty?" she whispered, afraid to anger the queen. The other ladies looked up too, just as Anne brought one hand to her face, closing her eyes.

"I feel faint," Anne murmured. Madge was the first to react, scooping up a small wooden chair and easing the queen into it as the ladies clustered around her.

"Fear not, my lady," Nan said, kneeling in front of Anne as though she sat on a throne. Mary and Madge did the same, as did Bess, setting the wine on a nearby table. They all looked hopefully at their queen. "The seamstresses will be here soon. I am certain they would not have harmed your fabrics. Your gowns will be beautiful, as always." The other ladies murmured encouraging assent.

Anne closed her eyes for a long moment, tears falling down her cheeks, and lowered her head in defeat. She drew a great breath. "It is not about the fabrics," she whispered back, then dropped her face into her head and let herself cry. "Don't you see? It is not about the gowns."

PS – Sorry these previews are sometimes quite lengthy. I get on a roll. ;)


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: **Okay, so, I obviously did not get something new out by the New Year. Many apologies. =) I have been very busy lately, and last month received my first book contract. I will be writing a biography of Anne Boleyn. In addition I have been writing some new, more commercial, historical fiction, which I do hope to have published someday. I hope you all will read them!

Anna! Okay, truthfully, I did not intend for Anne's swift meltdown to come so much as a mood swing as more a breakdown that she had been holding in while the assistant was in the room – but either way, it works. I guess it does look like a mood swing, although not what I intended. The instinct you're having about the red is very much on my level =) I'm glad you enjoy my Cromwell humour as well!

ObsessiveFanno, I'm so glad you're enjoying my character development… I am quite proud of that. I am not trained as a fiction writer, so I began the story not quite knowing where the characters would take me, and I am so pleased with how they've grown. I especially love the Seymour dynamic, which we get to taste again briefly in this chapter.

Blank-name reviewer, I am pleased you like the previews – I love doing them! A nice bit of a cliff-hanger for my readers, just trying to keep them interested. ;) One of my favorite tasks with this story (and the new one I'm writing, which hopefully will be published someday) is the challenge of adding humour in a believable and seamless way. Thank you for your compliments =)

IronPen! I've missed you! I hope you like this chapter!

Enjoy, all… Also, there is a bit of, ahem, light fun stuff happening in this chapter. Nothing too crazy.

i.

26 April 1536 – Late Afternoon

Jane Seymour stood in a thin set of underskirts and a corset in the middle of her room, arms wrapped tightly around her torso, even her robe and chemise elsewhere. She was surrounded by a trio of fussing seamstresses and her sister. Jane looked at the array of fabrics that the seamstresses had brought yet again, waiting for the perfect shade to present itself to her. "What do you think?" she asked Lissie for what felt like the millionth time. Lissie looked exasperated and uncomfortable, which in turn made Jane feel even less certain of herself.

Lissie put on a cheerful smile. "I like the browns for you, Janey," she offered.

"Brown?"Jane wrinkled her nose a little. The shades of brown ranged from fawn to dark sable and indeed were cozy, but Jane could not reconcile herself to these colours as the best fit for her personality. "Do you not think I should wear something brighter? More enticing? Perhaps a strong orange…" she ran her fingers over a bolt of velvet in that shade, like a blinding sunset.

Her younger sister hesitated. "I do not like that one as much," she cautioned.

"But…"Jane's fingertip lingered on the velvet. "I think perhaps I should order more clothing that speaks for itself. More of my clothing should-" she made a little explosive, sweeping gesture with both hands. "Have something to say. … like …" Jane glanced at the seamstresses, then fluttered her eyelashes furtively at Lissie. The name could not be spoken in their presence. Jane's eyes, a pretty shade of brown themselves, spoke volumes. "I should scarcely turn to brown."

Lissie licked her lips nervously and bit the bottom one to prevent the words tumbling out: the queen could wear any color. Sunset, crimson, lemon, sage, ivory, brown– there was not a single shade that did not become her. Instead, she said, "But you needn't compare yourself. You are two different ladies. There is no shame in a subdued wardrobe, especially for a person as sweet and calm as yourself."

"You mean boring." Jane looked defeated, not angry. Lissie felt no desire to comfort her sister, only an itching to return to the queen's chambers. She felt like a child hiding in the pantry to avoid chores.

"I mean subtle," she corrected Jane, a hard edge to her voice.

Jane's blonde hair fell over her shoulders we she bent over the blazing velvet that the seamstresses had spread over one corner of her great bed. She seemed in love with it. She lifted it and wrapped herself in it, then brushed past Lissie to approach the mirror. She tugged a fistful of hair to one side and draped it across the velvet. It contrasted brilliantly, there was no doubt of that. Like the red from the previous day, however, Lissie thought it made Jane look sickly. The orange colour was so hard that it did nothing for Jane's soft eyes and honeyed skin; it was a suitable partner for her blonde hair, but that was all. Jane stared at herself in the mirror and adjusted the velvet, pulling it down in the front to keep it level with the top of her corset. She let it split in the front where a gown might part to reveal a white underskirt. Jane turned her head from side to side, smiled at her reflection this way and that way, and even attempted a smirk. Lissie wanted to ask her who she was trying to be.

"I want a gown in this colour," the blonde in front of the mirror said to no one in particular. It sounded more like she was affirming it to herself. To Lissie: "I think it will look well with my gold diadem. You saw it yesterday, I believe," Jane nodded at her vanity table, where the crown-esque headpiece sat.

Lissie kept her countenance even. "Yes. Would you like to try it on?" Her tone was dry; she was half-joking.

"I think so, yes," Jane responded, her tone a little more regal than Lissie would have liked. Lissie retrieved the diadem and placed it on Jane's head, stepping back. "See? It looks very fitting."

_For a queen._ Lissie backed away and sat down on Jane's bed. Other colours surrounded her, at least a dozen of which would suit her sister perfectly. "How about a deep sapphire silk, Janey?" Elizabeth was half-sitting on the fabric, but she plucked it up and held it out to Jane. Jane hardly glanced at it in the mirror before she dismissed it.

"I wear so much blue already."

"True. But it does suit you," Lissie insisted, determined that Jane would not give up wearing blue just because it reminded her of her days as a private pastoral mistress.

"What colour do you best like wearing?" Jane asked Lissie, half-turning. She slid the velvet from her shoulders, folding it and draping it across the back of a chair, setting it apart. The seamstresses were selecting different colours of ribbon and buttons, and picking feathers from a large basket to show to Jane. Lissie had to wonder what instructions Henry had given them when he sent them here: to treat Jane to the very best?

Lissie surveyed the colours on the bed, trying to think of a shade that was not represented here with which to answer Jane's question. She was terrified that Jane would insist on ordering Lissie a new gown, too, and the younger Seymour girl was not about to accept any favour from the king. What, would she wear it to mass with Queen Anne? "I am not partial to any one colour," she lied. Lissie loved clothing. "I suppose ivory is fine." She fingered the bottom of her stomacher, the dainty ivory damask of which the standard lady-in-waiting's day gowns were made.

"The lady-in-waiting gowns look a bit too bridal for my tastes," Jane mused. Of course they did. Unmarried ladies-in-waiting were supposed to be virginal. Lissie almost chuckled at that, and the fact that she herself was a virginal widow.

"They are meant to be nondescript, I would think," Lissie replied, stretching her arms in front of her body. The sisters examined the fabric together.

"I think I shall change them, when I am queen."

Elizabeth looked up, shocked. "Change them? Why? They are traditional." Jane looked more beautiful now than ever: her hair loose, not plaited; tall and well-formed; she looked young and free. But Jane was a conservative lady. Why on earth would she want to break tradition?

"I think the concept of uniformity, not the gowns themselves, are the tradition."Jane's eyes roamed over the fabrics on the bed. "Maybe a grey. Something that does not stand out overmuch."

Lissie almost said, _grey flatters nobody_, but then she realized that Jane knew this. Jane had ensnared the king while dressed in a virginal ivory gown just like Elizabeth's. She clearly wanted to take steps to make her own ladies as un-enticing as possible for Henry, that she could keep his attention. It all seemed so backward to Lissie. Jane had not so much as received a proposal, much less moved into the queen's apartments, and here she was preparing against a possible rival for her future husband's affections. As if any measures would stop the king from taking what he wanted.

"Maybe black," Jane added, picking up a smooth strip of black silk. She twisted it between her fingers and rolled her hands absently, wrapping her wrists in it. "This is nice."

"You do not want black," Lissie said firmly. "It will look as though your ladies are in mourning. That is not the message you want to send."

"Mourning?"Jane's face hinted at alarm. "Why? What do you think they'll…" She stopped herself and glanced over her shoulder. The seamstresses had gone into an adjacent closet to advise themselves on Jane's current wardrobe. They were safe for the moment. "Why mourning?"

Lissie shook her head. "I know as little as anyone else. But in that case. Think how it would look."

Jane nodded, acknowledging the validity of her sister's warning. "I shall have a new group of ladies, anyway, I think," she continued, "and I should think none of them would mourn, one way or another." Jane looked down at her sister. "Would they?" Her tone was tense. When Lissie did not respond: "Lissie. Would they?"

"Are you asking if they would, or if I would?"

"Would you?"

"Jane…"

"You would." Jane's eyes bored into Lissie's. "You would regret it. I cannot…" She stopped short. Her accusing tone was too much for Elizabeth, who jumped to her feet.

"A death?" she hissed at Jane. "Are you asking me if I would regret _a death_?"

Jane stared back at her sister evenly. "A death that made me queen."

Elizabeth had never felt such anger in her life. She felt as though someone had poured liquid fire into her veins. She wanted to scream at Jane, grab her by the hair, pummel some sense into her. "A death is a death, Jane," Elizabeth growled through clenched teeth. "Surely your good Catholic soul understands that."

"So you would none of it happens?" Jane arched one eyebrow. "Is that what you are suggesting?"

"I am not suggesting anything."

"But you would mourn her."

"Yes,"Elizabeth snapped.

Jane nodded as though regretful. "I see." She looked off to the side, a pained expression on her face. The expression looked familiar.

"Yes, run and tell Edward." Lissie turned and found her shoes at the foot of the bed, where she had discarded them. She stepped into them and twisted her head sideways to look at Jane, who had not moved. "Also, pass on my congratulations to him. He has done so well with you."

Jane opened her mouth to speak, probably to demand where Lissie thought she was going. Lissie dropped a stray swatch of lace back onto the pile on the bed, suddenly sickened by all the fabrics there. Beautiful silks and velvets and damasks, all sent by the king to his sweetheart, to fulfill her most heavenly wardrobe desires. Where had they seen that before? And had any components of a wardrobe, or piety, or even character, saved a woman from Henry's indifference? If Jane thought some grey fabric would help her avoid the fate toward which she calmly observed her successor to be moving, she was as stupid as she was golden. All that consumption, for what? It would not give her a son, it would not provide her fidelity, it would not even bring her happiness. It was disgusting.

"Good day, Jane." Lissie made her way toward the door, and to her surprise after a moment she heard Jane coming after her. She waited for Jane to speak, to apologize, but instead she heard a swift rustling of fabric, the slick, uninviting elegance of silk, and then felt something strike her in the back of the head. Genuinely shocked, Lissie turned and looked at the floor. The black fabric that Jane had wrapped around her fists had been unfurled, smashed into a ball, and flung at her younger sister's retreating form. Lissie glanced up.

"You might need that," Jane's voice quavered a little, although her face was stony, "for your mourning."

Elizabeth wanted to laugh at the pettiness of it all. "Enjoy your velvet."

ii.

One beautifully shaped eyebrow arched back at the seamstress's assistant as Nan watched her mistress process what she was being told and fight to compose herself. "I beg your pardon," Anne said, each syllable painfully well-formed. "The royal" emphasis on _royal_ "seamstresses are where?"

The freckled young lady's own brow was knitted with apprehension as she glanced from Anne's shoes to her face and back down again, her facial muscles tense as if preparing to absorb a blow."They are in Mistress Seymour's apartments, Your Majesty," she all but whispered.

"And," the word stabbed ungracefully at the young girl, "I would assume that they have the bolts of fabric that were recently sent from Venice to the king, and to myself, in their possession in Mistress Seymour's rooms?" The girl nodded. Anne cleared her throat perfunctorily. "Mmm. And should Mistress Seymour take it to mind to have some new gowns made of _my_ imported fabrics, I can hardly imagine that they should refuse, having shown these to her and having brought them to her bedchamber." The girl was not sure how to respond. "Would you think it reasonable to expect that they may use some of the textiles for new gowns for the lady?"

Nodding minutely: "Yes, Madam, I think that a reasonable prediction."

"And without consulting me first to glean an understanding of my choice of fabrics, they seem ready to surrender the superior bolts to Mistress Seymour. For her new gowns." The room was silent. Nan could feel the other ladies, tense, behind her. The seamstress assistant looked ready to fall to weeping. Anne's face was set in harsh, unbecoming lines. "So are they suggesting that Jane Seymour's wardrobe requirements usurp those of the Queen of England?" Nan herself flinched back from the sharp edge of Anne's voice. "Forgive my tone, but you must understand my perspective."

"I do, madam, yes," the assistant responded. "I am sorry. I would be happy to fetch them and tell them that Your Majesty requires their services with all speed."

Anne's harsh expression endured for several moments longer before she contained her anger long enough to speak. "You would do me a great favour thus," she sighed, if so angry an exhalation of breath could be called a sigh. "Those who would do well by me seem to be dwindling with remarkable speed." She cast a quick glance at her ladies. "Send them here at once. If they have so much as sliced a ribbon of silk, it will not be a pleasant fitting." Anne flicked one hand in the air, dismissing the assistant, who dropped a quick curtsy and rushed from the room as though Anne would chase her.

Silence drowned the queen and her ladies. Nan, standing the closest to her mistress, was the first to venture a glance at her face, and her heart sank when she saw Anne's mottled nose and quivering lower lip. "Majesty?" she whispered, afraid to anger the queen. The other ladies looked up too, just as Anne brought one hand to her face, closing her eyes.

"I feel faint," Anne murmured. Madge was the first to react, scooping up a small wooden chair and easing the queen into it as the ladies clustered around her. Bess was in the corner pouring Anne a glass of wine in an instant.

"Fear not, my lady," Nan said, kneeling in front of Anne as though she sat on a throne. Mary and Madge did the same, as did Bess, setting the wine on a nearby table. They all looked hopefully at their queen. "The seamstresses will be here soon. I am certain they would not have harmed your fabrics. Your gowns will be beautiful, as always." The other ladies murmured encouraging assent.

Anne closed her eyes for a long moment, tears falling down her cheeks, and lowered her head in defeat. She drew a great breath. "It is not about the fabrics," she whispered back, then dropped her face into her head and let herself cry. "Don't you see? It is not about the gowns."

iii.

Katherine Brandon sank deeper into her bathtub, breathing in the lavender fumes from the oil that her maids drizzled into the steaming water. Her body ached from riding out with her husband all afternoon. She picked her arms up above the surface of the water and examined them, making sure that the dust had rinsed off. She pushed her palms across the flat, matted surface of her wet hair. Charles always insisted she looked beautiful in brown, but secretly she suspected that he just did not want her to see how dirty she got when they galloped through fields for hours on end. It was something of a tradition between them – although she feared it may be foolish whimsy, Katherine actually believed that Charles enjoyed setting aside an afternoon to spend with his wife.

_"You would never guess who I saw early this morning," Charles said, his gravelly tone indicating it had not been a pleasant encounter._

_"Who was that?" Katherine tucked a wisp of hair behind one ear. She tugged her riding cap down low on her forehead. She twisted her foot, trying to jar the ruffle at the bottom of her underskirt so that she could snare it and tuck it between her boot and her mare's belly._

_"The Queen," he responded._

_The duchess wrinkled her nose. "Oh? At what hour?"_

_"First light." He shook his head, staring off into space. "God, that woman."_

_"What was she about?" Katherine patted her horse's flank._

_Her husband shrugged. "Who knows? Greeting people? For a moment I feared she was fleeing from the palace."_

_"In which case you would be the perfect person to pursue her," Katherine snorted. "She was probably elaborately dressed and immaculately bedecked?"_

_"No," Charles breathed, "in a nightshift."_

_The duchess swiveled her head so quickly that the long green feather pinned to her riding cap dipped down and stuck to her painted lips. "Nightshift?" she repeated. "No more?"_

_Charles tilted his head to one side, still gazing off into the distance as his page approached with his riding crop. "A red robe over it," he added. "No underskirts or anything... not even shoes."_

A cold burning sensation furled Katherine's stomach into a knot and squeezed at her heart. She could feel it still, even as she lounged in her bathtub. She had watched the ripple of her husband's strong jaw as he clenched and unclenched it, her eyes tracking his nervously, well aware of what he was seeing. She was not fond of jealousy.

_"How inappropriate," she muttered, discomfited by the silence. Charles almost jumped at the sound of her voice, turning his head, quickly, guiltily, toward her. He accepted the riding crop his page offered up, reached for his wife's gloved hand, and kissed the leather reverently. When he raised his eyes, he was once again the roguish, protecting man she loved._

"Dismissed," his voice boomed behind her, telling her maids that their duties were ended for the evening. Katherine smiled to herself and took great care not to move. He would come upon her just as she was in her bath. After a short shuffling of feet and wiping of hands on aprons, Charles closed the door behind her maids. A delicious silence hung in the air as Katherine forced herself to stay still. She could just picture him leaning against a wall, his eyes on her great tub, only able to see the back of her wet head. Her breathing became difficult to control as he made his way over to her, his even, careful steps heightening her excitement. A clink sounded in her right ear as he set down his goblet on her bathside table.

"Do not spill my lavender," she murmured as his hands found their way into her hair.

"Dear God, I would never dream of it," he whispered against her ear, as chivalrous as ever. "Though frankly, I would as soon take you smelling like dirt as that..." he paused, confused, "herb?"

"Flower," she corrected, tipping her head back as his hands worked down her neck. She noted that his sleeves had been pushed above his elbows so he could submerge his forearms in his wife's bathwater.

"If you say so." His lips were on her neck, his fingers trailing down her spine. He found her hips, then her stomach. Katherine bit her lip in anticipation and whimpered as he brushed his fingers over her pelvis and onto her inner thighs. She was curled up in the tub and the tops of her knees stuck out of the water, which was rippling with every excited breath.

"Is this what you think about all day?" she smirked, leaning her head sideways to give him free reign of her neck.

"Rubbing your thighs? Hardly." He worked one hand between her legs and laid his fingers on her. "This is closer," he whispered as she strained up toward his touch. "What do you think of, wife?"

"This," Katherine said through clenched teeth. She widened the stance of her feet for him and pressed her cheek against his.

"Just this?"

"She shook her head vigourously. "No, and," she tugged at his arms in frustration. He would not budge. "Torment me not!"

"Patience," Charles teased. "I rather like to tease you sometimes."

"I rather dislike it."

"Oh, that is not true," he insisted. "It makes the act sweeter, and you know it."

Katherine wriggled under the soft, superficial strokes of his fingers. "It seems un-sweet at the moment," she grumbled, trying to kiss his lips. He pulled away. "Do it," she begged, twisting her pelvis this way and that.

"Or?" She could hear him smiling, and she put her lips to his ear and whispered the words she had harboured in her mind for ages, waiting for the perfect moment to say them:

"Or I will do it myself."

Charles straightened as though she had knifed him. His tone was shaking, disbelieving, awed. "You will - what?"

She lay her head back on the tub and smiled languidly at him, savouring his shocked expression. "I will do it myself."

His hand, still flattened against her, twitched. He tapped a finger. "You would not."

"I would." Her hand snaked down his forearm, brushing his fingers aside. "What other choice have I?"

Now Charles was having difficulty in catching his breath. "Do it then," he urged, trying to sound as careless as possible. She could hear the desperation in his voice. Still smiling, Katherine worked her fingers to and fro, drawing out the moment. Her index fingertip was all it took. Charles sucked in breath and wrapped his forearm tighter around his wife's middle. "Stop," he begged. "No further. I can hardly stand it."

"I thought you would like it," Katherine simpered, pouting. "I thought for certain that the sight would please you." Half of her finger had now disappeared, and she punctuated her sweet words with a little ladylike moan, soft and merciless as her husband writhed behind her. "You like it not?"

"Of course I like it," he choked. "I just cannot bear it."

Her knees spread a little further. "Bear what?" She pushed up to the knuckle, arching slightly as though the sensation drove her anywhere near as mad as he did. "All you must do is watch."

"_Enough._" His hands were at her ribcage, half-dragging, half-lifting her from the bathtub.

Laughing in pleasure at her own victory, Katherine wriggled in his arms. "Charles," she giggled, "my drying sheet-" she gestured toward the hearth where warm linen was spread out for her.

"Leave it," he cut her off as he placed her on the ground behind the tub and spun her to face him. He kissed her lips as if he had not tasted them in years.

"But I am wet," she protested, uncomfortable with her soaking hair.

A low, throaty chuckle broke their kiss as he began to steer her toward the bed. "Not as wet as you will be."

Genuine laughter rose from her as she reluctantly moved away from the drying sheet. "My hair will soak the bed linens," she warned as he kicked off his boots.

"The maids will forgive us." He yanked his white shirt open at the collar and peeled it over his head. "Especially when I tell them about that show you just put on for me," he winked, chucking the shirt behind him.

"You would not." She rolled her eyes.

"No," he agreed. "Imagine if word got out. I would be fighting off every young man in the kingdom."

Flattered, Katherine gestured again toward the sheet. "Should I at least blot my hair?" Her bathwater was running down her back in thick rivulets.

Charles shook his head, lifted her off her feet, and all but threw her onto their bed. "You are too beautiful. I cannot wait." Finally assured, Katherine smiled and beckoned her husband. He crawled over her naked body carefully, his breeches dampening from contact with her skin. He loved that she never suggested he douse the candles.

She twined her arms about his neck. "I did not even wash the lavender off. You will be smelling of that scent tomorrow," she snickered.

Charles buried his face in her neck and hair, inhaled exaggeratedly. He raised his face and grinned at her, unconcerned that the front of his hair was now wet. "As long as it's you I smell like," he whispered before kissing her. "And to be clear: this is what I think about all day."

iv.

Anne tapped her foot as the head seamstress wrapped the last of the new fabrics around her. Well, not the last - but the last of the small group with which Anne had decided her first new gowns would be constructed. The last of the new gowns that she was ordering tonight. Oversized pieces of parchment littered her bedchamber, most matched up with their chosen fabrics, others prostrated forlornly on the bare floor or this or that piece of furniture. Their day would come.

"I quite like this one," Anne murmured, swiveling her torso back and forth before a large mirror. "I think it suits me. What say you, Nan?"

Nan Saville was, predictably, the one lady left. The others had retired after several hours of gown-choosing, during which Anne insisted on skipping supper and discussing each new design with the seamstresses. The ladies had returned from eating to find an energetic queen who soon dismissed them for the evening. Nan had offered to stay, should her mistress need anything. Now she sat in a large chair at the side of Anne's bed, at Anne's insistence, with her knees drawn up to her chin. She surveyed this new textile with weary eyes in the dim candlelight, vaguely wondering what time it was. "It most certainly does suit you, my lady."

"Hmmm," the queen mused. She brushed the seamstress' hands away and gathered the fabric. It was a soft, warm buttercup yellow shade. The cloth itself was thin, gauzy, similar in texture to a veil, but opaque. Anne held it against her stomacher, carefully turning it over in her fingers to create an overlapping fold, then another. She nodded in agreement. "I know the precise gown I want with this fabric," she declared.

The seamstress looked less than thrilled. "Wonderful, madam."

Anne threw the fabric over her shoulder and began hunting for the sketch. She held it up to show the seamstress. "You see? I have been waiting for just the right fabric. Here you will see the bodice-" she dragged one fingertip gently down the parchment, indicating the shaded middle area of the gown she had drawn "all overlapping pleats. Fashioned as columns of loops," she added, noting from the seamstress' expression that she was not envisioning it the way that Anne herself was, "almost like the gatherings at the bottom of underskirts, but with a smaller hem."

"On a bodice?" the seamstress asked. "I have never heard of such a thing."

"Precisely!" the queen glowed. "Precisely. That is what I want. And as for sleeves," she gave a careless wave of the hand, "perhaps just a similar ruffle over the shoulder to cover the top of the arm. Most of the fabric will be required on the bodice and skirt." She nodded and handed over the drawing, then draped the buttercup gauze around the seamstress' neck. "Wonderful. Thank you. Those are all the gowns."

"Let us take stock," the seamstress stepped into the middle of the room, looking dazed. Anne plopped down at the foot of her bed. The remaining two seamstress assistants were leaning against the far wall, almost entirely forgotten. They stepped forward. "There was the blue silk with the straight sleeves," she began, pointing at the fabric with the sketch on top.

"Right," Anne cut in, "but remember that the two sides are slightly different colours. The side that must be facing outward on the garment is that which has the subtle green undertone. It is only visible in the sun. You may want to assemble it outside." Nan barely hid a smile at Anne's suggestion that her seamstresses spend a day outside piecing together a garment so that the Queen of England could live out her apparent fantasy to be a chameleon.

"Of course," the seamstress sighed. "Outside. And there is the red satin to be constructed of thin panels," she signaled to one of her assistants to begin collecting the piles as she named them.

"Stiffened with something so the satin can be saved from that dreadful taut appearance," Anne added. "And be sure that the panels are matched at the juncture of bodice and skirt. And remember, big dramatic bell sleeves on that one. I want it to be a gown that people will remember."

The seamstress rubbed her forehead. "Yes, Majesty. The purple velvet combined with the gold velvet, straight sleeves on that one as well, with a square neckline, and adorned with gold beading," she barked as she saw the queen preparing to interrupt again. Blissfully happy at the thought of her new garments, Anne nodded along.

"I fear I am forgetting one," the seamstress mused, true apprehension in her tone.

"The white?" Nan supplied.

"The white, oh, yes, the white!" Anne made a little excited motion with both hands and flopped onto her back. She sprang back up almost immediately, leaning back on the bed, her hands behind her. "You mustn't forget the white!"

"Of course not, my lady." One of the assistants already had the raw silk in hand. "Are you sure you do not want us to treat it? Such delicate fabric-"

"No, no," Anne shook her head. "It is too fragile. I would not risk something happening to it. So beautiful the way it is. I would rather have a heavenly gown out of that, wear it once and take a chance of ruining the fabric," she declared. "Now, go over the specifications?"

The seamstress read from the parchment that the young lady presented to her. "Long, loose sleeves; wide-collared neckline; two layers of the fabric; mother-of-pearl embroidery on the cuffs. Any on the neckline?" She peered up at Anne, raising an eyebrow.

The queen shook her head dreamily. "No, that will do. And the yellow: overlapping panels, stitched down so they do not just flop about, but let there be some movement."

The seamstress nodded at Anne's characteristically vague and contradictory instructions. "Yes, my lady. Which would you like us to work on first?"

Anne stretched her arms above her head. "The yellow," she said after a moment. "By noon."

Nan's jaw dropped, but the seamstress had the good grace not to betray her panic. "Noon, madam? This noon approaching?"

"Should be easiest," Anne shrugged as though she did not see the difficulty. "Of the five, I mean. Simply fold and stitch. Not complex. I am too eager, I must have a new gown at once." She nodded excitedly. "Noon, I think. I shall spend the morning in prayer and don it for supper."

Defeated, the seamstress curtsied. "As you wish, Majesty. We will see you tomorrow." Her assistants tripped from the room like sheep avoiding the nip of a dog at their ankles.

Anne turned to her lady. "D'you think the yellow was the right decision?"

Aware that Anne was not asking whether a noon deadline was reasonable, Nan nodded without hesitation. "Certainly, Majesty. The yellow suits you. It will be a wonderful day tomorrow."

The queen looked more at peace than Nan had seen her in weeks. "You are right," she sighed, smiling, and laid herself back onto her bed. "Oh, I am exhausted," she complained, but even that was with a smile. She opened one eye. "It was kind of you to stay. You may go to your bed. Thank you."

Nan dragged herself to her feet without protest. "Would Your Majesty care for anything? Wine? Are you warm enough?" She blew out two of the four remaining candles, leaving the room very dimly lit for the queen's rest. She would tidy up the room, organize the queen's sketches and take stock of the fabrics left behind by the seamstresses in their hasty retreat, when Anne was rested and at prayer in the morning.

"I am perfect," Anne murmured, grabbing for a pillow and pulling it down to cushion her head. She was two-thirds of the way down the great bed and seemed to have no intention of moving toward the headboard. "I am half-dreaming already, Nan."

The young woman knitted her fingers together, smiling as well, although with a bit of anxiety. The queen's plans, preoccupations, often served as a temporary mask for the eroding stability of both her position and her condition. The queen was distracted, joyous, but it would not change what they all knew was coming. "I wish you the sweetest of dreams, Your Majesty," she said sincerely.

UP NEXT:

He watched her stumble, watched how her body contorted as she tried to steady herself and keep from falling. The shock on her face disgusted him. It was all he could do not to curl his lip in a sneer, so hateful did he feel of her in that moment.

She clasped one hand over her mouth, utterly shocked, as she hauled her frame upright, squaring her shoulders and trying to maintain some semblance of queenly dignity. One toe stepped on the hem of her beautiful new gown and in a fuzzy corner of her frantic mind, Anne berated herself, warning herself not to tear the delicate fabric. Keeping her palm over her mouth as though it bore a gaping wound, Anne could not stop herself staring at her husband. She knew how stupid and wide-eyed she must look. She hated to look shocked, to look as though anything could be beyond her control. The fete was over. When would she accept it? It was over. She could take off the mask and accept that she was no longer in control of the show. She shrank from him a little, taking her eyes off his seething face, and she reached for the folds of her skirt with the other hand, to lift its hem from under her foot before it tore.

Shaking with inexplicable rage, Henry watched her fuss with her gown for a few moments, hating her more with every minute move she made. So obsessed with her fucking clothes. Did she have a humble, selfless thought in that beautiful head? Such a proud woman. He thought of Katherine, of himself snubbing Katherine, all at Anne's behest. In his mind's eye, he pictured Anne, urging him, physically pushing him, to treat Katherine badly. Foggily he knew that the image was conjured and that no such conversation had ever taken place; Anne had never made such a gesture; but it was as true in deed as it needed to be. A humble, pious woman like Katherine, or Jane, against a selfish peacock like Anne… and he had let it happen. Katherine and Anne. He had hated one then, he hated the other now, and if in his mind's eye their sad smiles and accusing eyes faded into one unhappy woman, so be it. Anne chose that moment to look up, and when her eyes burned into his like those of the abandoned lamb to which she was certainly not akin, he lost himself.

Henry came at her without warning, like a hawk swooping on its prey. His arms lashed out and he shoved her, truly shoved her this time, and the footing she had struggled to regain was now hopeless. Anne crashed gracelessly to the floor, without so much as a hand to steady her or absorb part of her fall. Instead of confusion and shock, Anne felt frustrated, desperate fear fill her. Her eyes filled with enraged tears. Husband and wife stared at one another, Anne trying to arrange her face just as she had tried to arrange her feet moments before. Henry looked out of breath.

He flung his beautifully festooned arms wide, their stance intimidating. His wingspan had once attracted her. Now she felt trepidation at his powerful body and, yes, disgust that he would use it to hurt a woman. "See?" he barked down at her, where she half-reclined on his chamber floor. "See what you made me do?" He shook his hand at her, as though she would apologize for him shoving her.

"I see," she spat back, feeling anger arise in her to counter her fear. Her body covered itself in gooseflesh as her hairs raised, nature's effort to make her body look bigger and frighten off any predator, as her father had once told her. "Of course the fault is mine. Never yours. Always your wife's."

"_Yours,_" he all but shouted, grasping an alabaster elephant figurine sent to the royal couple by Suleiman, the Ottoman Sultan. The elephant was beautiful: gold-trimmed, with emerald eyes and a ruby harness. Henry palmed the figurine and squeezed it as though he would break it in one hand. "Yours, you ungrateful-"

"Gratification will save no wife of yours," she hissed, cutting him off. She could not stop her mouth. "Poor Jane…"

With a grunt, Henry drove the figurine straight at the stone floor. It smashed in millions of pieces, shards flying out every which way, but the king did not flinch.

=) See you all next time! Let me know what you think!


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: **Hi! Here it comes, the chapter I was so excited to write. Didn't quite turn out as I expected… the story has been changing lately. Hope you're all enjoying the ride!

Just so everyone is clear, we're in a pretty dark, schizo phase of the plot here. Everything is just a mess and no one knows what's going on. Obviously there won't be any smooth sailing at all (if that's what you want, the story of Anne's fall is not a place where I can give it to you lol), but things will calm down a little once the characters figure out the direction they're all going. Let me know how you like it =)

Anon, thank you so much for your review! I love the Jane/Lissie dynamic. Next chapter we'll have an Anne/Jane encounter (see Preview below!). And, I do try to inject some fun and lightheartedness just to break up this plot, which is by definition a darker one. Anne's obsession with clothing is a running theme and very historically accurate. Hope you enjoy the new chapter!

WARNING: This chapter contains a little violence. It's minimal. You'll be fine.

27 April – Midday

i.

His hands were on her face, cupping it as his lips kissed hers. The image blurred and his silk-clad arm swung through the air, catching her, pulling her in for a brief private squeeze. The sensation faded and he was kneeling by her side as she lay flat on her mattress, her back aching, her belly a great rounded ball, swollen and heavy with the promise of his heir. His hand ghosted up her arm, but when she looked down, it was not her plain day dress from pregnancy but a priceless cloth-of-gold gown that he had insisted she have. Then the color of her sleeve faded and the rings on his fingers changed; then again, and again, as she saw different moments of that same precious gesture. His hand on her arm. Ruby rings, garnet rings, diamond rings, sapphire rings, and ebony satin, then green, white, brown, red, until the colors and sensations all ran together and she was lost in the muddy, senseless cloud of images that formed their love.

She started ever so slightly at a hand on her shoulder.

"Your Majesty," Nan whispered, taking care not to react to the tears snaking their way down Anne's face. "Forgive me." She gestured behind her at where the seamstress hovered eagerly on Anne's bedchamber threshold. "Your gown is finished."

Anne sniffed and with effort unclenched her clasped hands, wiping at her cheeks. "Keep them busy for a moment while I right myself, would you?" She held out her hands and Nan helped her to her feet.

"Yes, Madam." Nan hesitated. "Are you all right? What were you thinking about?"

Anne straightened her bodice, glancing down at her sober black gown. She sniffed again. "Nothing," she said quietly as she began to move away, her voice as soft as the whisper of silk, "I was just praying."

The gown was perfect on her, as expected. She stared at herself in the mirror long after the seamstress had gone, picturing that lovely young woman, that happy couple, the passion and fire and devotion that had once flown between them. She was a human. She deserved an answer.

Before she knew what she was doing, she had left a sighing Nan behind, tidying up her rooms, while she swept through the halls toward Henry's apartments.

"Your Majesty," "Good afternoon, Madam," "Your Grace," the demonstrations of obeisance assaulted her. She approached Henry's inner chamber, where she assumed he was. Someone would have told her by now otherwise. Daniel, his page, waited outside. He offered a deep bow.

"My lady," he smiled, a little uneasily. "I knew not that we were expecting you."

"I was taken with the desire to speak with my husband," she responded, trying to set him at ease. "I have barely seen him lately." She waited expectantly for him to introduce her.

"His Majesty did not know you planned to visit," he tried again, looking unsure what he even meant.

Her eyes darkened. "You would not suggest that I may not see my own husband," she said flatly.

"No," he huffed, hastily trying to decide how to remove his offending comment. "No, I just, you see, Your Majesty, I usually give His Majesty advance notice of his guests when possible, and I…" he trailed off.

The side of her mouth twitched up in a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. "I do see. Well," she glanced sideways at the door to Henry's chamber. "No need to trouble you, then." With that, she pushed her way into the room and closed the door behind her.

When had Henry become a cave dweller? His room was so dark that for a moment she actually suspected he was not there. Then she saw him, sitting in a straight-backed chair against the wall, just staring. Slowly his head turned and he looked at her. Without a word he averted his eyes; then, after a long moment: "What?"

She did not quite know what to say. After a few moments it was clear that he did not intend to stand up and speak to her or acknowledge her in any other way. She swallowed down the effrontery. "I have come," she croaked, then cleared her throat, "to ask you what you intend to do with me."

"Do?" he repeated as though she had misspoken. "Do? What I intend to do? I do not intend to do anything with you."

"So I am to keep living as the isolated queen while you traipse about with Mistress Seymour?" she shot back. She knew him better than that. The taint of impropriety would be avoided at all costs. To her surprise, he barely bristled at her words.

"Leave her out of this conversation," he warned. "She has nothing to do with it."

"Like I had nothing to do with Katherine?"

He was on his feet. At last, some sort of reaction. "You forget yourself." He stared at her for a moment, then chuckled. "You think yourself far more important than you are. Were."

"I count myself of no importance," she declared, trying to ignore the stab of his words, "as you so clearly have shown me to be worth to you. Unloved I may be," she swallowed, her nerves threatening to get the best of her, "but an animal I am not. You owe me a response. Please tell me what you intend to do with me. A quick annulment?" She wanted to goad him, wanted to provoke him into saying something in anger that shed some light on her situation; she could not live in this foggy Hell forever.

He stood still and watched her fidgeting with her gown. She was not an animal, but her conduct did resemble something as uncivilized as a beast at times. She was wrong. He owed her nothing. He heaved a great sigh. "Get out."

"I will not." Her tone was quiet, brave.

His eyes flashed dark blue with rage. "Get. Out," he repeated, his teeth clenched. She only shook her head again.

"I remember a time," she tried again, "when you could not go an hour without me. That time is gone forever. I know it. I respect it. But I ask you, in honour of that time past, please. Please, Henry," she implored, "just tell me what you want to do with me. I am inclined toward cooperation. I simply ask for your terms."

Her eyes were so wide and innocent, her face so open, that it made him hate her. Inclined toward cooperation indeed. A first that would be. She was a harping, whoring witch. She should count herself lucky to still be breathing, not condescending to be amenable to his will. Who was regnant, he or she? He supposed that would depend upon which one of them you asked. He shook his head at her. "In honour of that time past? You and I must be thinking of different times. The one I recall would provoke no generosities on my part."

Her shoulders slumped a little in spite of herself. "None of it?" she whispered. "Elizabeth? Do you remember our wedding here in London? That quiet, chilly morning? The Duke of Suffolk was late?" She took a step toward him as she spoke, then another. "Remember our letters? How we would pass notes between our hands at church?" Her smile was soft. She stood face to face with him now. "Do you remember the words you wrote me?"

"I prefer to forget," he responded, but his eyes met hers. She felt him waver. Most of her did not even care to win him back. Winning him back now would just increase her risk of losing him again later. She could not spend the rest of her life winning him back. Her realization of this, over the span of two seconds, shocked her.

"How could you forget?" She smoothed one curl behind her ear. Perhaps she could reawaken in him some compassion for her, perhaps… she did not know. Anything was better than this purgatory. She cocked her head a little, gave a genuine smile, remembering their heady days and nights together. "'Alas, my love, you do me wrong…'" If _Greensleeves_ did not find his heart, nothing would.

He stared at her and she could not read his emotions. He could hardly read his own emotions. She stood so close, and her eyelashes were so thick and she was still there, not going away, not banished like he could banish her image when they were apart. He tried to picture Jane but he could not. All that was before him was Anne. In spite of himself his nose burned as though he would tear up. Anne eased toward him and leaned toward his lips. His eyes slid closed.

Her heart burned as she neared him, too afraid to even reach for his hands.

Her breath tickled his chin and he was dragged from his reverie. With a few sentences she had tricked him, entranced him once again. Witch. Enraged, he opened his eyes and put one hand against her shoulder, pushing her squarely away. She yelped a little in surprise, stumbling backward, and glared at him. She must have read challenge in his gaze, for she came at him again.

It reminded her too much of the passion, the tension that had burned between them. Her heart pounded in frustration as she stepped toward him and reached for his shoulders. Surprisingly, this time his hands found her waist, squeezing below her ribs hard as he kissed her back angrily. It lasted less than a moment before he tensed, and Anne's instincts to recoil were not fast enough. His hand cracked against her mouth, his ring hitting her lip, and she stumbled backward for good this time.

He watched her stumble, watched how her body contorted as she tried to steady herself and keep from falling. He could not see her legs, of course, but he knew she crossed one foot over the other, straining her hips to keep herself grounded as she struggled not to fall in front of him. The shock on her face disgusted him. It was all he could do not to curl his lip in a sneer, so hateful did he feel of her in that moment.

She clasped one hand over her mouth, utterly shocked, as she hauled her frame upright, squaring her shoulders and trying to maintain some semblance of queenly dignity. One toe stepped on the hem of her beautiful new gown and in a corner of her frantic mind, Anne berated herself, warning herself not to tear the delicate fabric. Keeping her palm over her mouth as though it bore a gaping wound, Anne could not stop herself staring at her husband. She knew how stupid and wide-eyed she must look. She hated to look shocked, to look as though anything could be beyond her control. The fete was over. When would she accept it? It was over. She could take off the mask and accept that she was no longer in control of the show. She shrank from him a little, taking her eyes off his seething, angry face, and she reached for the folds of her skirt with the other hand, to lift its hem from under her foot before it tore.

Shaking with inexplicable rage, Henry watched her fuss with her gown for a few moments, hating her more with every minute move she made. So obsessed with her fucking clothes. Did she have a humble, selfless thought in that beautiful head? Such a proud woman. He thought of Katherine, of himself snubbing Katherine, all at Anne's behest. In his mind's eye, he pictured Anne, urging him, physically pushing him, to treat Katherine badly. Foggily he knew that the image was conjured and that no such conversation had ever taken place; Anne had never made such a gesture; but it was as true in deed as it needed to be. A humble, pious woman like Katherine, or Jane, against a selfish peacock like Anne… and he had let it happen. He had hated her then, he hated her now, and if in his mind's eye their sad smiles and accusing eyes faded into one unhappy woman, so be it. He could not stand either of them; one was gone; he would rid himself of the other. Anne chose that moment to misstep, still clutching the side of her jaw as though he had hurt her, and when she glanced up at him, her eyes burning into his like those of the abandoned lamb to which she was certainly not akin, he lost himself.

Henry came at her without warning, like a hawk swooping on its prey. His arms lashed out and he shoved her, truly shoved her this time, and the footing she had struggled to regain was now hopeless. Anne crashed gracelessly to the floor, without so much as a hand to steady her or absorb part of her fall. Instead of confusion and shock, Anne felt frustrated, desperate fear fill her. Her eyes filled with enraged tears. Husband and wife stared at one another, Anne trying to arrange her face just as she had tried to arrange her feet moments before. Henry looked out of breath.

He flung his beautifully festooned arms wide, their stance intimidating. His wingspan had once attracted her. Now she felt trepidation at his powerful body and, yes, disgust that he would use it to hurt a woman. "See?" he barked down at her, where she half-reclined on his chamber floor. "See what you made me do?" He shook his hand at her, as though she would apologize for him shoving her.

"I see," she spat back, feeling anger arise in her to counter her fear. Her body covered itself in gooseflesh as her hairs raised, nature's effort to make her body look bigger and frighten off any predator, as her father had once told her. "Of course the fault is mine. Never yours. Always your wife's."

"_Yours,_" he all but shouted, grasping an alabaster elephant figurine sent to the royal couple by Suleiman, the Ottoman Sultan. The elephant was beautiful: gold-trimmed, with emerald eyes and a ruby harness. Henry palmed the figurine and squeezed it as though he would break it in one hand. "Yours, you ungrateful-"

"Gratification will save no wife of yours," she hissed, cutting him off. She could not stop her mouth. "Poor Jane…"

With a grunt, Henry drove the figurine straight at the stone floor. It smashed in millions of pieces, shards flying out every which way, but the king did not flinch. Instead he looked to his right and blindly lunged toward the fireplace.

Anne's eyes widened when she saw what he had grabbed: a poker from beside the hearth. He held it like a dagger, like one that a soldier might use to stab his foe in the heart. She began to shuffle backwards on her hands, and she could feel the fabric of her gown catching on the uneven floor, pulling, tearing. Before he had turned on her, Anne had retreated, too filled with fear to even think to get off the ground.

What a coward she was, shrinking away from him like a serpent after spewing such venom. Bile rose in his throat at the sight of her frightened countenance, paler than ever, as she stumbled backwards, half-squatting, half-crawling, toward the wall and his door. Did she think to abuse him thus and then depart? He palmed the poker, unsure what he was going to do with it, as part of his mind told him to stop, to look at her face, but his veins boiled with the effrontery of her words and he could not see her as anything but a demon. "Take it back," he demanded, his voice low, as he closed in on her.

She felt acid bubbling into her throat and she feared she would sicken out of fear before he had a chance to impale her with the poker, but one way or another, she must be heard. She had had enough of hiding. Jaw quivering, Anne shook her head, even as she scrambled backward further. Her back pressed against the wall and there was nowhere left to go. He was on his knees before her. The poker was against her chest, just above the top of her bodice, pressing a little against her breastbone. It was sharper than she had imagined. It felt gritty, dirty, ashen.

Careful not to spear her, Henry grabbed a fistful of his wife's hair, wrenched her head back to make her look him in the face. This was not a game. "Do you know what I can do to you as King of England?" he whispered.

"I only know what I have seen you do to others, as King of England," she gulped out, trying to force steadiness into her voice.

His face was almost against hers. A slight nod, a quick acknowledgement of the horrors over which he had presided with her by his side. The blood they had seen shed together. The years she had spent on the arm of the most powerful king in Europe. "Worse," he whispered, staring her in the eyes.

Her hands were shaking so badly that she feared they would collapse against the wall and she would fall back to the floor from the awkward half-crouching position to which Henry had dragged her. The poker had not let up from her chest. Vaguely she recalled a lovely sentiment in Henry's own writing, a decade ago: "I have been struck above one year with the dart of love." What would happen if she collapsed against the floor? What would happen if she moved in any direction? Where would the poker go?

"Give me one reason why I should not," he raised his eyebrows. Anne seemed too fearful to speak. Henry dragged the poker tip upward, over her shoulder, to her neck. His blue eyes dropped to track its progress, careful not to press hard enough to draw blood. He noted how heavy her breathing was; labored, like when she made love. He remembered loving her. He could count the ridges of her collarbone. She had lost weight. He had gained. When he looked back at her face, she was beautiful. The years became her. Not so him. He hated her again.

His eyes came back up to hers after roaming her body for what seemed like too long, and Anne saw her only chance at a reasonable appeal. She whispered, "I am your wife." Henry's expression did not change and she waited, tense, for him to put the poker into her throat, end it all, make her not his wife anymore. Instead, after a long moment, he gave a brief shrug, sniffed perfunctorily, and sent the poker flying across the chamber. Anne wanted to touch the spot on her chest where it had assaulted her skin, but stayed her instincts.

"My wife…" he raised his eyebrows quickly, speaking to himself, acknowledging the validity of the statement. He glanced at her, released the tuft of hair from his fist, and grabbed her by the elbow instead. "Up," he grunted, lifting to her feet. She yelped as he twisted her arm, to which Henry rolled his eyes. He pinned her against the wall, back pressed to the stone. "Dear God, enough screeching. Yes, I suppose you are my wife, sweetheart. Many a husband have treated their lives much worse than you are treated, and for much less." Anne opened her mouth to protest and instead found herself nearly touching noses with Henry as he maneuvered closer to her. For a moment she expected him to kiss her again. As he neared, he pushed her arm further behind her back. She felt the fabric strain across its stitches and the first one snapped quickly. Henry, unaware of his wife's wardrobe concerns, continued as though giving a lecture: "Most wives in your situation would have nothing but appreciation and respect for their husbands, not all this bluster and rage. One would think you mistreated or abandoned. New gown, I see," he added harshly without looking down. "So, obey as a wife must, and leave me in peace. We have had enough of a row for one day, I think."

Anne started to speak again, but Henry silenced her with a look.

"And stop clutching your face like you've been beaten," he added, removing her left hand from her jaw where it had been clasped all this time. He barely checked when blood appeared, both on the palm he had removed and on her mouth. The cut was not deep, and the blood had already begun to dry. He almost snickered at her bewildered expression. "Bite your lip, sweetheart." With that, he stepped back and made a grand gesture toward the door.

She eyed him, then the door, then pushed off the wall and began to move past him. "You are not the man I once loved," she whispered.

As usual, she had said exactly the incorrect words. She was not even past him, and Henry reached out and grabbed her by the waist in a gesture that reminded even him of a loving embrace. "You are not the woman you made yourself out to be." One hand came up to find her neck, turning her face toward him. He saw the blood on her lip and told himself he did not remember putting it there, persuading himself so swiftly, so forcefully, that by the time he spoke his next sentence he believed it himself. And if he believed it, that was enough. He closed his eyes and was assaulted instead by the smell of her hair, the rosewater on her exposed shoulders. He breathed in as inconspicuously as he could, barely hearing what he was saying. "I put the poker down once. You would do well not to count on such luck every time." He was very close to nuzzling his nose against her hair, and he snapped himself out of it, bringing himself from under her spell. "You are not immortal," he added, purely to have something to say that would necessitate him standing there with his arms about her like an enamored lover, or a gentle husband, or any man who wanted to fuck her. He gave her a little shove. "Now get out of here, or I will have my guards remove you. And don't think I will not do it."

Without another word, Anne bolted to the door, all but threw herself against it and flung it open gratefully. She stumbled out of the inner chamber, which felt more and more like a cavern. There stood Daniel, just as he had been when she entered the room, and next to him a blank-faced Thomas Cromwell. The breath nearly knocked out of Anne when she met Cromwell's eyes. Her knees felt weak from the crushing of emotions against one another, and for a moment she feared she might wilt, but instead she drew herself up to as impressive a height as she could muster. Daniel gaped, openly staring at Anne, probably noting the light pink scratches on her collarbone. He knew what she had looked like when she entered Henry's chamber.

Anne looked at Cromwell. Cromwell stared back. He opened his mouth as though to speak; he had forgotten to even bow, to even acknowledge her. On his face, bewilderment registered as a mere wrinkle here or there. Even alarm on his face looked stony.

"Boy!" Henry bellowed from within, reminding Anne that he could come out at any moment. "Wine!"

Daniel started, made a hasty bow to Anne, and fled into an adjacent room to collect a serving tray and wine. Anne stood still for another long moment, steadying herself, and then made for the door at the other end of the chamber. She made it three steps before Cromwell put himself in her way. "What happened?" he whispered, unsure what else to say.

"Nothing," she murmured back, staring straight past him toward the door.

"Your lip is bleeding," he observed. One hand flitted up as though he would use it to tip her head back, lift her chin with one index finger to examine the cut on her face. Silence. He dropped his hand. "Are you all right?"

She shrugged, then nodded hastily. Her eyes betrayed her and filled with tears. He was standing too close to her. She attempted to step around him, but he anticipated her step in a way that made her shudder, thinking of when they had traversed his office floor. He cut her off as she made her second attempt to get away from Henry. When she glanced up, his mouth was partially open. He looked at a loss for words. They stared at one another again. Anne took a deep breath. "You should move, Master Cromwell, before the king comes out and sees you paying me heed."

Daniel saved her then, bustling out of the adjoining chamber where the pages kept a stock of small fare, wine and ale. Cromwell took a discreet step backward from the queen. His eyes fell to the floor as though he had witnessed something horrible.

"Good day," Anne whispered, determined to get away from there before Henry came out. She stiffened her shoulder led with it, brushing past Cromwell.

"Majesty," he mumbled, and to her shock she felt his hand on her arm, the gesture warm, gentle, almost comforting. It did not feel hesitant. There was a surety in his touch. She shook him off more forcefully than she meant to, her eyes brimming with tears as two pages dropped to a bow as she passed. She felt Cromwell's eyes on her, until a jovial voice boomed:

"Cromwell!"

"Majesty!" he did not miss a beat, and Anne burst through the door into Henry's outer corridor, pinching the bridge of her nose to keep her tears from spilling over. On the humiliating, unending walk back to her own rooms, Anne encountered more acquaintances than she remembered she had. Licking the blood from her lower lip carefully, she smiled at her father and told him she did not feel well. She tried not to let it bother her that he did not inquire about the blood on her face, and stalked off in the direction of his apartments rather than pursuing his daughter.

"My lady?" Thomas Wyatt reached for her with a confidence more reckless and brazen than Cromwell's, a gesture born of years of adoration and friendship and familiarity. He pulled off a leather riding glove and placed his bare hand on her back, tilting his head to peer at her face. "Have you taken a fall?"

"Ill, my lord, just a touch of fever," she soothed him, trying to ignore the splitting feeling on her lip when she smiled too broadly. She saw his mouth form the word, "but," and turned her back and the corner before he could press her.

Several concerned faces appeared before her. She kept straightening her gown, hoping the tear was not too noticeable, and kept the bloodied hand in a fist, tucking it in the folds of her skirt. The Duke of Suffolk's forehead wrinkled in confusion as he saw her, checked, looked her over more closely, and dipped a shallow nod, trying all the time to read the expression on her face. She passed Thomas Seymour and gave him a pitying look – _see what you are about to give your sister? – _that was probably lost on him entirely. Jane Boleyn did not hide her shock, and although her expression was not concerned, a flash of empathy overtook her face. She twisted her lips into a half-frown, curtsied steadily, her eyes raised. Her expression said, _you needn't tell me. I know._

Just when Anne thought she would collapse from dizziness and the disorienting parade of curious countenances, she found herself in her apartments. "Nan," she called, tugging at her dress. "Nan, I need a bath."

Nan and the other ladies convened from their scattered posts and rushed after Anne into her bedchamber. "A bath? It is only – what – Your Majesty…"

"Please, no questions," Anne begged, sinking down on a chair. She was exhausted. "No questions, ladies, just someone get me my bath. I need to go to bed."

"There is no warm water at this hour," Nan fussed, wringing her hands as she signaled to a maid to fetch the bath. "It could take… a half hour at least–"

Anne shook her head. "Cold, then. Help me with this." She twisted around and Nan saw the torn bodice on her new gown. A whole seam on the left rear had pulled apart. She moved behind Anne and began pulling at the fabric, unlacing the stomacher.

"Is Your Majesty –"

"Yes, I am sure." Anne snapped more than she meant to.

"I was going to ask if you were all right."

Anne shook her head. "Please just get them to bring me my bathtub." Nan nodded, stripped the bodice off Anne's middle, and untied her skirts. She moved to collect them and put them in one corner for the seamstress's consideration. Anne grasped her wrist. "I am sorry," she whispered.

"Not at all." She handed Anne a large goblet of wine. "Drink." Perhaps that would distract her from licking the cut on her lip.

The bath water was cold. It did not matter. Anne shivered and shook, her body covered in gooseflesh, when she rose from the tub. Nan wrapped her in linens and pulled back the bedclothes. Burying her head in a pillow, finding herself not inclined to weep, Anne shut her eyes against the brilliant April sunshine and gave herself over to slumber.

ii.

"Master Secretary? Sir?"

Cromwell slowed just before the exit from Henry's gallery, cursing the person who stopped him from leaving. He was so disgusted with Henry that he could hardly stand to be in his rooms, much less listen to the petitions of his gentlemen. He turned and it was a page who followed him, the young man who had waited with him outside Henry's chamber. The boy was panting. Cromwell waited for him to speak.

"Sir, forgive me. May I ask you a question?"

"Have you not just asked me a question?"

"Another, then." The boy gulped and looked around. "You saw the queen when she – well, when she came out of her audience with His Majesty." Pause. "She looked… out of sorts. Perhaps she is unwell."

Cromwell glanced out the window, measuring the sunlight to determine the hour. "Is there a question in our future?"

The boy bit his lip. "D'you think she is all right?"

Could he really be so stupid? "Her Majesty's well-being is the concern of no one but the queen and her ladies."

"Is she not our anointed queen?" Confusion and innocence clouded the boy's face. "Should not we all have a care for her well-being?" The questions were challenging and legitimate. The boy clearly cared more about Anne than did her husband. And more than Cromwell, he reminded himself. For certain he did not care about her.

"I advise you to keep her in your prayers," was all he could think to say. "On a personal level, however, you should not trouble yourself. Her Majesty can take care of herself."

The boy trotted after Cromwell as he tried to exit the conversation. "But-" he sounded desperate, as though a new tutor had just told him that there were twelve cases in Latin, and he was obliged to know the new material immediately. "But she is the queen. We pray for her daily. If she seems in distress, should we not help…"

What, did the Lord send this boy to try Cromwell's conscience? He whirled. "Listen, lad, I have no time for this. I would not advise that you speak thus to anyone else. The queen's personal mood is not a public matter. Affairs between Their Majesties are no business of ours. Offer up extra prayers and kind thoughts, and you've done your piece." He turned and stalked away.

"I shall," the boy called as he retreated. "And for you, Master Secretary." Cromwell acknowledged him with a flick of the hand, while thinking to himself that the boy should not waste his breath. He walked away from Henry's rooms, the opposite direction that Anne would have just taken to get back to her apartments. He began to imagine her turning to her right instead of her left when she left Henry's gallery, trekking through the less beautiful corridors and finding her way to his own rooms. As he made his way to his office, the images became stronger until he could imagine her perfectly, waiting for him, sitting primly in a chair before his desk. He wondered what he would do with her, what he would say to her, how he would explain what had just happened to her.

"Some lunch, sir?" Mrs. Lockton piped up next to him as he moved through the outer office, his pages doffing their caps in acknowledgement.

"Yes, please." He adjusted his dossier under one arm and moved into the corridor that led to his office, fully expecting Anne at the other end, her back to him, the ripped seam exposing the chemise he had glimpsed as she rushed away. He would stop just inside the door, close it, watch her. She would not turn. "Are you all right?" he would ask.

She would shake her head.

"Are you hurt?"

She would nod. He would hand her a cup of wine, a square of damp linen to clean her face and her palm. He would hesitate behind her, then put his fingers in her hair, smooth the side of it that looked like it had been mussed. His hand would linger before finding its way to her shoulder. She would not move, just sink a little into his touch. After awhile he would move closer to her and she would lean her head against him, wordlessly. She would cry. He would let her.

He pushed open the door to his office, but the chair was empty. No queen. He resisted the urge to slap himself across the face, sitting down behind his desk, staring at the chair where he had envisioned that she would sit. He was alone. He cleared his throat anyway.

"Are you all right?"

Silence. The question was just as useless in her absence as otherwise.

"Are you hurt?"

She was not there, not nodding, but he still wanted to ask. After a long pause, he sighed.

"You may cry. You are entitled to tears." And he meant it.

He imagined what she might be doing right now. He remembered the pink scrapes on her collarbone, a faint dusty appearance that suggested dirt or soot. He relived the way she had thrown Henry's door open, stumbled out, hoping for safe ground. He had to admire how she kept herself together in front of him. His stomach burned as he pictured what Henry might have done to her – he had heard her yelp, had heard scuffling, had not wanted to ask the page who was in there with Henry. He had already known. He had wished he had not come. Of all the things Henry had done, he had never pictured him mistreating his wife. He hoped this had been the first time. He remembered the nervous feeling that had enveloped him as he stepped backward, trying to force her to look at him. He had almost said her first name. He had almost touched the cut on her lip. He had almost put his arm around her. She must have needed it. Instead, all that he could manage was a hand on her arm – more than he was officially entitled. She shook him off, her stiffness telling him that he was not her friend and should not feign it. She was right. Her state was as much his fault as anyone's. Might as well have been him with her in that room. He swore to himself that he would find a way to… what? Make this up to her? He shut his eyes and shook his head. There was no solution. He could not stop. He could not go back. If she sat before him now, tears glistening on her cheeks and stinging her bloody lip, what would he say? What could he say?

"I'm sorry."

He remembered a time when he longed to make her cry.

UP NEXT:

"Mistress Seymour," Anne greeted her, her voice clear and strong. "Sir John." She nodded at him. Begrudgingly, he bowed to her. "I trust you are both well this morning."

"Very much so, Your Majesty," Sir John responded without a hint of warmth or respect.

Anne eyed Jane, who stood very close to her. Anne could have reached out and slapped her. "Jane," she pretended to tease, "for a lady with a post in my service, I hardly see you. My ladies and I have just heard mass. Perhaps when you are finished here you would like to join us in my apartments to break your fast." She was aware how false her generosity sounded.

Jane stammered a little. Sir John opened his mouth, and Anne stayed him with a hand. "The invitation is for your daughter. Allow her leave to answer." Several long moments ensued while Jane's eyes flicked between every face in the room. In panic, Jane's face lost some of its serene attractiveness; her angelic softness receded. Anne raised an eyebrow. "Jane? Have you gone mute?"

"I cannot. Thank you for the invitation… Your Majesty."

The corner of Anne's mouth twitched into a smirk. "No need to apologize, Jane. I did not expect you to accept. I think you are quite skilled by now at refusing royal invitations." She forced back a wicked grin as a few soft gasps sounded behind her. She had not been so brash in public for years.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: **Hello! New chapter, slightly longer. Still in that schizo phase I talked about last time, but some nice stuff is on its way =)

To my anonymous reviewer, thank you for your compliments on the last chapter! I really appreciate them. The Henry/Anne dynamic is tough to write, and I try to keep it realistic but add some more drama. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Also, guys, is there a reason you're not reviewing? Is the direction/content of the recent chapters not to your liking? Please let me know how you're feeling about it – your reviews and comments are what develop me as a writer.

This new chapter is published in honor of Hilary Mantel's BRILLIANT 'Bring Up the Bodies,' which is a sequel to 'Wolf Hall' – if you've not read Wolf Hall, you MUST. BUTB came out yesterday and I'm pacing myself, since it'll be years before Ms. Mantel publishes the third and final Cromwell installment.

In other news, I recently found out that I have been accepted to the Yale Writers Conference at Yale University for this summer! I am thrilled, as a young writer, especially because this is the first year for the YWC. Hopefully I will be able to take the opportunity and learn and continue to develop in the craft =)

Best wishes to all!

28 April – Morning

i.

As Nan tugged the black gown over her shoulders and smoothed its skirts toward the floor, Anne swallowed, timidly asked: "Did he… has he… any word?" Her maid flinched, shook her head, her eyes downcast. "I thought not." The days of kind messages sent after an argument were long past.

"Hair up or down for mass today, Majesty?" Nan rubbed rose oil between her palms and smoothed it over Anne's neck and shoulders.

"Up. No sense in playing at maidenship," Anne shrugged. "Have you some sort of messenger who alerts you of my impending rise each morning?" Nan was always the first of the queen's household to report in the morning, despite often being the last one there at night.

Nan chuckled and guided the queen into a chair. "Just doing my duty." The truth was that she dared not abandon her mistress for too long; her situation was precarious, as was Anne's emotional health. Should anything happen to the queen, Nan wanted to be there to aid her.

"You are more devoted than most." Anne perked up. "Have you thought of what masque you'd like to do when we go to France? I promised you the lead role, and then never breathed another word of it."

"Your Majesty would know better than I which role would be best suited for my capabilities."

"A maidenly, virtuous heroine would be best…" Anne brought a pewter wine goblet to her lips, chuckled against the rim. "Narrows the field considerably."

While Nan put her hair up, selected the right pair of black slippers, and discreetly covered the cut on her lip with a bit of Turkish clay-lotion, Anne's other ladies assembled in her bedchamber. Bess offered a tray of fruit slices. "Your Majesty has hardly eaten…" she began.

"After we hear mass," Anne cut her off. "Hunger does not alter routine." She let out a stabbing laugh in the middle of the service when her stomach growled angrily, interrupting the chaplain, and turned to nod in acknowledgement at Bess. Her ladies flushed and looked away uncomfortably.

At the final _amen_, Anne crossed herself and rose. While she thanked the chaplain and apologized for her huger pains, she vaguely heard the chapel doors creak open and clank shut. She turned and started down the aisle to see a guilty looking Jane and Sir John Seymour. Sir John shifted awkwardly, the feather on his cap bobbing above his head. Jane stayed perfectly still, but she seemed to contract, as if holding her breath or bracing for a blow. Stillness hung over the room, from the bare beams of the vaulted ceiling to the layer of dirt on the rough stone floor. Anne glanced behind her. Her ladies had swept into a cluster at her back; even the chaplain looked interested in the scene before him. She squared her shoulders and started down the aisle.

Anne felt Nan hurry to be closer behind her, to help rush her from the chapel if necessary. No need. Anne feared no one, Jane Seymour and her ineffectual father included. She continued straight toward the wide-eyed blonde, whose father closed in behind his daughter. He regarded Anne wearily, as though she was a nuisance rather than his anointed queen. Uncomfortably, Anne wondered how many times she and members of her family had looked at Katherine thus.

Staring Jane down, Anne did not check her step. _If she refuses to bow before me, I will have her thrown out of the palace for disrespect_, she vowed, _Henry be damned. I am still the queen._ Fortunately for Jane's sake, she did drop a brief curtsy and then rose, eyes on the ground.

"Mistress Seymour," Anne greeted her, her voice clear and strong. "Sir John." She nodded at him. Begrudgingly, he bowed to her. "I trust you are both well this morning."

"Very much so, Your Majesty," Sir John responded without a hint of warmth or respect.

Anne eyed Jane, who stood very close to her now. Anne could have reached out and slapped her. "Jane," she pretended to tease, "for a lady with a post in my service, I hardly see you. My ladies and I have just heard mass. Perhaps when you are finished here you would like to join us in my apartments to break your fast." She was aware how false her generosity sounded.

Jane stammered a little. Sir John opened his mouth, and Anne stayed him with a hand. "The invitation is for your daughter. Allow her leave to answer." Several long moments ensued while Jane's eyes flicked between every face in the room. In panic, Jane's face lost some of its serene attractiveness; her angelic softness receded. Anne raised an eyebrow. "Jane? Have you gone mute?"

"I cannot. Thank you for the invitation… Your Majesty."

The corner of Anne's mouth twitched into a smirk. "No need to apologize, Jane. I did not expect you to accept. I think you are quite skilled by now at refusing royal invitations." She forced back a wicked grin as a few soft gasps sounded behind her. She had not been so brash in public for years.

Awkwardly, Jane tried to retort. "Indeed, Your Majesty," was all she could manage.

"I once was too," Anne continued. She heard Nan move behind her, perhaps trying to coax Anne into walking away, not continuing this dialogue. "Very skilled at the same, in fact. Imagine the practice you'd get over six years." Jane shuffled her feet, her blonde hair spilling over one shoulder. Anne's own hair was pulled up, and she imagined how severe she must look to Jane. "And look at all the good it's done me," she added, sweeping a hand over her sober gown.

Jane's father had watched the scene unfold from two paces behind Jane, and now he stepped forward, uncomfortable. "Your Majesty-"

"Sir John." Anne's tone was crisp. She silenced him with a look this time and turned her gaze back on Jane. "For my part, Mistress Seymour, I hope you fare better." Unconsciously, she touched the sore spot on her lip. It was healing rapidly, but she had no doubt that Jane, along with the rest of the court, had heard what happened. Jane stared at Anne in horror. Why not have it plain? Katherine had confronted Anne with much harsher words, although in private. Anne straightened her spine, reminding herself to stand up straight. She had been slouching lately, sinking under the weight of her cares and heartbreak. "Perhaps the motto, 'ad finem saeculorem,' should be changed." She snickered and glanced at her ladies. They peered back at her. "It seems to me that 'ad vitam aut taedium' would suit better." Anne let out a true giggle, and was not bothered when no one else chimed in. She sighed, still laughing, and relaxed. The curse of anxiety seemed to have lifted from her. She reached out and patted the stunned Jane's shoulder: "Good day, Jane. Sir John," she nodded sideways, smiling, and floated from the chapel. Her ladies trailed along behind her.

Jane tried to steady her breath. Her heart pounded from proximity with the queen. Her sister was the last of Anne's ladies to pass her, and she reached out and caught Lissie's arm, pulling her in. Lissie spoke Latin. "What did she say?"

Lissie wrinkled her brow. "Did you not hear her?"

A little jerk as Jane tugged at Lissie's arm in frustration. "The Latin. What did she say in Latin? The marriage motto is 'to the end of time.' What did she say would be more appropriate? Ad vitam…"

"Oh." Lissie looked uncomfortable. "Ad vitam aut taedium. It means, for life, or until boredom."

ii.

Madge and Lissie combed her loose hair while Nan put the pins back into their jar. It seemed that Anne spent more and more time on her appearance as her other options for activity diminished. She opted for a new, shorter corset, and she sucked her breath in: "lace it tight."

Bess held onto Anne's shoulders while Nan attempted to tighten the corset further. "Your Majesty, this corset is large on you," she murmured. "I cannot tighten it further. I would have to pad it."

"None of my clothes fit anymore," Anne moaned, theatrical, as she hiked up her chemise to cinch her garter stockings. "Guess I shall have to order new ones. Speaking of – where is my new white dress?"

It fit her like a cloud. She called for pearls, ropes of pearls, and she wound them around her neck, seed pearls and oyster pearls and polished mother-of-pearls. They dripped over her protruding collarbones in a surprisingly unattractive fashion: she was so pale, so close to looking sickly, that the loose white silk did nothing for her. Instead of looking like an angel, she looked like a ghost. Anne saw it when she looked in the mirror. She stared long, tilting her head to one side, pursing her lips. "Earrings," she decided. Earrings would fix it.

And so they brought her earrings, choices of long dribbling pearl earrings, or fat round pearl spheres to hang just below her earlobes. But then she thought that earrings might be too much, and so she suggested, "just brush my hair out again."

"What has gotten into her?" Madge whispered as she and Nan refilled their wine goblets.

"I haven't a clue." Nan took a sip. "Perhaps a way of distracting herself."

"Ladies, where is my rouge?" the queen called from the other room.

Finally, with thrice-brushed hair hanging to her waist, Anne faced her reflection. Her lips and cheeks were brought to life with cosmetics; her eyes were as dead as they had been all day. The gown still hung off her frame, and although the fabric was beautiful, even two layers of it did not hide the fact that Anne simply did not fill out this beautiful gown. The mounded pearls on her collarbone threatened to crush her chest, where Nan had rubbed another helping of rose oil. A set of opaque stockings had been rejected in favour of the more fashionable ones in Spanish lace.

"I need shoes," Anne pointed out without comment.

"Yes, madam," Nan agreed, happy that the queen had ended the heavy silence that hung over her rooms. "Slippers or heels?"

Anne tilted her head back and forth again, looking at her face in the mirror rather than at her gown. "Riding boots."

"I beg your pardon, Majesty?"

She turned. "The white ones. And find the matching gloves. I desire some fresh air."

iii.

"Out for a ride?" Cromwell's nose wrinkled. "Why? She rarely does that."

Mark shrugged wonderingly. "I know not. There was no mention of it before. I had no prior knowledge." The boy had cultivated a relationship with a young lady of the queen's household, and was becoming rather adept at reporting on Anne's itinerary.

"Who went with her?"

"Her ladies."

Cromwell's jaw twisted as he chewed on the inside of his mouth. After a long blank stare, he twitched his head dismissively. "Well. She may ride as she will. She is, after all, the queen."

iv.

Anne urged her mare, Melusine, over a fallen tree branch. Melusine cleared it without difficulty, but the acidic rush in Anne's stomach as they flew through the air made her feel more alive than she had in weeks. She leaned over Melusine's neck, angling her body against the horse and leaning into her trot. Faintly, she could hear her ladies behind her, their protests mingling in the distance: _Majesty-slow-down-my-lady-we-cannot-keep-up-Your-Grace._ Her breath caught as she felt Melusine draw her further and further from her household, her ladies, her duties. How often had she been alone in the past ten years? The dull edge of her riding boot tapped Melusine's flank, and the horse burst into a smooth run, without pretense of patience or ceremony. "Faster," Anne murmured as they burst out of the mossy thicket and into brilliant sunshine. She did not want to look behind her; she did not even want to acknowledge her ladies' existence.

They slowed to a stop as Anne disappeared against the horizon, a pearlescent dot with flying dark hair. Lissie put two fingers against her closed eyes. "Dear God. We have lost the queen."

"One does not lose a queen," Mary Shelton pointed out, gazing after Anne with raised eyebrows. Admiration was visible on her face. "She is not a child. She lost us."

"Would you like to explain that to His Majesty?" Madge huffed.

"We cannot go back without her, surely," Bess's eyes darted around. "We cannot return without her. What will we do? How will we explain?"

"She will likely come right back," Nan consoled them. "She would not run away entirely. Perhaps she just needed an hour to herself." Her words were confident, but her uneasy face watched the path that the queen had just taken. She straightened her hat and swung down from the saddle. "Come, let us take a rest."

Bess Dormer hopped down next. "Her dress will be ruined."

"That's the least of our problems." Lissie slid from her mare's back and landed lightly on the ground.

"Until she realizes that her white silk has become a rag," Bess maintained.

Nan shook her head as the Sheltons dismounted. "She knew what she was doing." She squinted after the queen again: nothing. "We shall wait an hour. She will certainly be back."

v.

"Sir?"

"Mark?"

"The ladies are back." Mark was still walking toward his desk when he said it.

Cromwell waved a hand. "Wonderful. Thank you." He placed his quill back against a memorandum that stretched before him on the desk.

Mark took an anxious step forward. "Sir, the ladies have returned. Without the queen." Wide green eyes shot up to regard him. Cromwell was silent for several long moments.

"Have they said where she is?"

"They know not. She departed from their company. They could not catch her."

Cromwell was on his feet. "Could not catch her…" he trailed off, brushing past Mark. "Stay here, wait for my return."

Anne's ladies loafed about in her antechamber, genuinely lost without their mistress. A copper-haired one shook out her skirts, thin puffs of dirt expanding about her, while Elizabeth Seymour poured wine. She started when she saw him, as though he was there to shout at her. "Good afternoon, Master Secretary."

"Where is the queen?" he responded, trying to keep the urgency from his voice.

She looked uncomfortable and glanced around for help. "We are not sure. We all went out riding earlier this afternoon, and… she galloped ahead of us, and we lost her."

"She outran you all?"

"She is very good on a horse," Madge Shelton piped up, sounding defensive. "Surely you know that, sir."

"Why would she do that?" He looked at the auburn one. She shrugged timidly. Clearly he was asking the wrong people. "Where is Mistress Saville?"

Nan slipped through the door that led to the presence chamber. "Good afternoon, sir," she said coolly, her face telling him she was no fan of his. "May I help you?"

"The queen is gone?"

"I am sure she will return of her own accord soon. We went riding and got separated." She fixed a flat, polite smile on her face.

"I am told she deliberately outpaced the rest of you. Is that true?"

A pleasant shrug. "You shall have to ask her that when she returns, my lord."

Apparently she was not the right person to ask, either, and she was correct: only Anne knew, only Anne could have known, what she was doing. "Did she take anything with her?"

"The clothes on her back," Nan said, shaking her head.

"She was wearing a white silk dress," Madge Shelton offered, "and pearls." Nan glared at her, but Madge seemed oblivious.

"Not riding attire?" his tone demanded an answer of Saville, who shook her head minutely. "Good day, ladies." He spun on his heel and closed the door behind him. In the gallery, he could not decide where to go. He took a deep breath and tapped a finger against the wall as he thought. What if she were fleeing England? She could not. But she might.

When Cromwell was admitted, Henry was scribbling the last words of a letter. He beckoned his secretary with one hand and sprinkled sand on the drying ink with the other. "Cromwell, how go the preparations for May Day?"

"All moves apace, Majesty." He shifted his weight, suddenly unsure of what to say.

Henry raised his eyebrows. One palm rested on the face of the letter, the other on the chairback. Cromwell wondered if he was getting ink on his palm. "What brings you here, then?"

"Majesty…" Cromwell cleared his throat. "It seems that Her Majesty Queen Anne went out riding with some ladies of her household earlier this afternoon, and got separated from the group. The ladies have returned without her and have no knowledge of her whereabouts."

Henry's mouth opened slightly as he absorbed the words. "So she is gone?"

Cromwell made an expansive gesture. "Not gone, but misplaced."

"Misplaced. The Queen of England, misplaced. Where…" Henry's gaze seemed to revert inward, then fixed on Cromwell. "Running away?"

"I know not." He shook his head.

The king wiped a hand over his face – the hand from the letter, and Cromwell was relieved to see no ink smears on Henry's forehead. Cromwell wondered if it was a letter to Jane. "She cannot run away," he said baldly. "She…" Cromwell thought he heard emotion in Henry's voice: could it be possible that she chose to leave him? Was Henry not supposed to be the only one allowed to leave his marriages? Henry cleared his throat. "Find her. Seal off the ports, no private vessels in or out until she stands before me. Post people on the roads, question people in the towns as they move further from London. Get someone up to Northumberland, tell the Earl… tell Harry Percy," the king shook his head, almost sneering, as he remembered Anne's first love, "he is charged with the north. Tell him not to let her through. And if he apprehends her, she is not to be lodged in his castle. I want her returned to this palace immediately." Henry pointed to the bare floor in front of him.

"Yes, Majesty."

"Send out the retainers. Bring her back, Cromwell."

Back in his office, Mark stood in the same spot where Cromwell had left him. "Find the others." The secretary slid into his chair and flicked a fresh piece of parchment onto the middle of his desk. He dipped his quill.

Mark assembled William, Nicholas, and Thomas within minutes. The four boys, all of similar age and experience, and all of whom had come to Cromwell from merchant families in London, stood before him in matching liveries. Mark shut the office door without being prompted.

"The queen has gone missing," Cromwell said flatly, pressing his palms together. "She seems to have fled from her household during a group ride earlier this afternoon, and she has not returned yet." The boys nodded, not in unison. "Royal retainers have been sent out to locate her, and the king demands she be brought back here at once. I want the four of you to go now and join the search, but independently of them. Work together. If you find her first, you must ascertain her plans." He deepened his gaze to ensure they understood the gravity of what he was saying to them. "The king thinks she is trying to flee England." Fortunately, none of them laughed. Their late-adolescent faces were as hard and blank as his own. He waved the letter he had just finished writing. "I am also going to give you this letter. It is addressed to the merchant-sailors who are active in the London ports now, and you will see that I have included as many specific surnames as possible. You all may be familiar with some of these people." He beckoned the boys closer, and they drew into a tight knot in front of his desk. "As I said, if you find her, ascertain her plans. This is a list of people whom I know and trust. The letter suggests compliancy with whatever you may ask of these merchant-sailors. Ascertain her plans and work accordingly." As he spoke, he folded the letter, poured the wax, and sealed it. Four pairs of young obedient eyes followed his movements. "Do not come back with this letter. Shredding is insufficient; burn it or eat it if you have to. Fear not," he added at their startled expressions, "this type of ink will do you no harm. I have eaten many a letter in my day." He held out the letter, and after a moment, William stepped forward and took it. "You all understand discretion, do you not?"

"Yes, yes, sir," they murmured, one on top of the other.

"Find her first," he repeated, sitting back in his chair and waving them from the room. "Ascertain her plans." He scratched the back of his head, kneading his own thinking muscles without Elizabeth to do it for him, and wondered if there was a punishment on the books for a secretary turning double traitor and helping a queen escape who was unwanted and doomed anyway. Or if he would get to write it himself.

vi.

Anne patted Melusine's velvety muzzle as she stepped carefully along the bank of the brook they were following. "Careful, my love," she soothed the mare, ignoring her silk train as it dragged across the muddy ground. "Though all the care in the world cannot always save you. I suppose that is a lesson one must learn a difficult way, or else one never truly learns it. Easy enough to say, much more difficult to grasp."

"I suppose I imagined marriage and queenship would be similar to my courtship, but with added security and physical fulfillment," Anne mused. She paused to rearrange her ropes of pearls, which had gotten tangled during the ride. Melusine was still panting. "Instead… well, it simply did not work that way. I should have realized nothing would ever be that simple." She shook her head. "But again, without learning that, one would never know."

She turned to Melusine. "Do horses get married?" The mare's sweet large eyes peered back at her, and Melusine actually bobbed her head back and forth, as though denying it. Anne chortled, her characteristically loud laughter echoing in the quiet surroundings. "I thought not. And you all seem to copulate with one another as you wish. Humans are not that way," she explained, smoothing Melusine's mane. She chuckled again. "Well, some humans. Men more than women, I daresay. Is that not something? Men are permitted to act like animals do sexually, or at least, when they comport themselves thus, everyone excuses it as being 'only natural.' But women are expected to behave with all the loyalty of an animal, and none of the other natural urges."

"This is the most alone I have felt in ages," Anne continued, slackening Melusine's reins in her hand. The mare immediately bent her head to nibble, and Anne wandered closer to the water, each foot on a different rock. "The most in control of my destiny. Think of it," she turned back to Melusine, who had moved a few feet past her in search of greens. "The queen of the realm, always watched, always restrained. Never able to feel alone or singular or powerful. The queen," she repeated, to make sure Melusine understood. A leafy weed sticking out of her mouth, Melusine regarded Anne with that same blank stare as she chewed. Anne wondered how often Henry had felt this way. They used to discuss private matters, matters of the heart and mind and spirit. She wondered where that level of intimacy had gone, while knowing that she would never know. The thought barely served to sadden her by now. Anne dipped the toe of her white boot into the brook, withdrew it. No wetness made its way inside. Well made.

"I wonder how many mistakes I have made in my life. I wonder if I have time to right the wrongs I have done." She was aware how ridiculous her circumstances were: standing at the water's edge festooned in white silk and expensive jewelry, philosophizing with a single mare as audience, but she could not stop. In spite of herself, she thought of Mary Tudor, the younger, her step-daughter. For years she had been able to refrain from mentally putting herself in Mary's shoes, but lately as she watched her own world unravel, she could not help but wish their interactions had been different. She thought of her sister, who probably had had yet another child by this point, and who reportedly led a happy and quiet life with her husband. She thought of the measures her father had undertaken on her behalf during those years of her courtship, this category blank and dark, as he had repeatedly advised her not to fret over anything: _leave it to me._ She knew what her father was capable of, and now, being almost a decade older, she wondered the extent of his own mistakes; she wondered how many he had hurt and compromised to put her on the throne; and most of all, she wondered how she could have willingly turned a blind eye to whatever misdeeds he had transacted in her honour. She doubted she had time to right these. She thought of a desk, of mussed hair and gold chain links. She could not erase her mistakes. They would come with her wherever she went. She had raced away from her ladies, thinking to free herself and spend a few hours in solitude and peace, only to find that one cannot separate oneself from one's life, one's past, one's knowledge. Not even a queen. Especially a queen.

"Do horses make mistakes?" she asked Melusine, who continued chomping and did not favour her with a look this time. "I suppose not on the same level that humans do. Particularly ambitious humans." She thought of Cromwell, wondered what share of his own mistakes he could account for. Certainly he would be able to throw together a list of hers. "It is human nature. We step on one another. We see only our own paths, only our own desires." Her own marriage was the best example of this. Although she had recently come to the realization that she no longer possessed the motivation to try to win Henry's love again, the ache was no less sharp when she thought of their past love. "Although those change, and we never consider it that way. We never think of the larger effects. We only see what we want and how our mistakes impact ourselves." She closed her eyes and she could feel her lace collar being ripped off again. "We let our urges rule over us."

Anne slid her pearls through her fingers, thinking of all the gifts Henry had bestowed upon her. She had treasured them, coveted them, the jewelry, the silks, the crown. She had checked at nothing to have them. Now she saw what they were worth to her. She pitied Jane Seymour, truly, for she knew not what she sought. The indifference of a man's stare, a man who had once lived and breathed for your presence, burned more than the hunger of poverty ever could. The corner's of Anne's mouth twitched up, her eyes melancholy: a sad smile. She turned to look at Melusine, tears filling her eyes. "Think anyone has missed us?"

vii.

Henry's page rushed into Cromwell's office yet again, the same one that had been dashing to and fro for the past hour. "Master Secretary, I apologize for the trouble–"

"No need, what's the message?"

"His Majesty wants to know if any progress has been made."

Again? This young lad had been in here thrice in sixty minutes. "None yet." He took a look at the boy. "Tell me: what is His Majesty's state?"

The boy shook his head. "He is in a rage. He demands for someone to deliver his wife to him at once."

"His wife," Cromwell repeated. "I see. Well, please assure His Majesty that his retainers, as well as a legion of my own boys, are out looking for Her Majesty and that we expect to be able to bring her back with all speed. I am doing the best I can."

"His Majesty wants to know what will be done if the queen is harmed." The page extended the words cautiously. Cromwell's forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"Who should harm her?" The boy shrugged. "Tell the king in no uncertain terms that if any injury has befallen the queen, those responsible parties will be dealt with at my hand." As he said the words, his conviction shocked even him. He would rip the fingernails off any hand that harmed her. And here he sat waiting for her to come home so he could finish helping her husband get rid of her.

"Yes, sir." The page bowed and began to step away. Cromwell beckoned him back discreetly.

He leaned over the secretary's desk. "Is he throwing things?" Cromwell whispered.

"Just some fruit." The page whispered back. "No figurines or books."

The level of Henry's rage could sometimes be gauged by its physical manifestations. "I see. What's your name, boy?"

The page straightened, backed off. "Daniel."

"Daniel. Good lad. Off you go."

viii.

They spotted her at the other edge of a bare, mossy field; mossy only in appearance, as the soil had not yet been tilled and tiny blades of grass peppered the earth. She was a white figure, steady, perched atop a horse that ambled out of the forest behind them.

"Is it?" William murmured, quiet as though he feared she would hear them.

"Looks more like a ghost."

"Of course it's her," Nicholas hushed. "Come, let's go."

She had seen them by now, and she made no move to run. They met in the middle of the field, the queen's disarray becoming apparent as they neared her. Her white dress was muddy and grass-streaked, and the hem more resembled a mop than a silk garment. She looked frail and small, but surprisingly not weary. Cromwell's boys made no move to dismount in her presence. "Your Majesty," Mark called, bowing on horseback, "are you all right?"

"Fine." Her tone was guarded as her eyes darted back and forth. "You have come to apprehend me, I suppose?" She looked at their plain liveries. "Cromwell's service?"

Mark cleared his throat. "Yes, my lady, Master Secretary sent us. His Majesty is very concerned for your safety. Your ladies returned to the palace without you."

"We got separated," Anne agreed, or made it sound like she agreed. "So, have you come to do His Majesty's pleasure or Master Cromwell's?" She fluttered her eyebrows, trying to suppress a smile.

"We…" Mark looked around awkwardly. "We have instructions to, to ascertain your plans." The phrase had sounded so much better when Cromwell said it.

"Begging your pardon?"

"Master Cromwell," Nicholas jumped in, "wanted us to determine your plans before proceeding. That is, what you planned to do, given your separation from your ladies."

Her eyes took in the four young faces. Genuinely confused, her mouth opened and closed. "I have no plans," she said at last. "I was separated from my ladies, and now I am making my way back."

The boys exchanged looks. Mark wanted to say to her: _if you wish to run, we can arrange it._

"If Your Majesty wishes to return," he said finally, "we will be happy to assist you. To make sure that no harm comes to you."

Still uncertain, Anne smiled. "Very well. If you are assisting me, no one can fault me if I get lost. But I do ask that we ride in quiet. I am fatigued." The boys nodded in compliance, and a chorus of _yes-Your-Majesty_ sounded before they settled into silence.

They were not far from Greenwich, and as Mark suspected, the king's own retinue soon intersected their path. Mark sensed them, in the distance, before he saw them. He reined his hunter in and drew him alongside the queen, doffing his cap deferentially. "Majesty, forgive me, I agreed to ride in silence." He looked her in the eye, trying to pour the same meaning into the gaze that his master managed to do. "You wish to return to Greenwich?"

She did not seem to understand the question. "Yes," she responded carefully, as though she did not see what other option she had. She regarded Mark carefully for a few moments, and thought, and the beginnings of the idea seemed to dawn on her. She nodded in affirmation. "Yes. I wish to return to Greenwich."

Henry's retainers stopped short when they saw the group of five, and the relief was evident when the two parties neared and the queen's presence was confirmed. "Majesty," one of the Tudor-rose-embroidered liveries said. "We have come to escort you back to the palace."

"Suddenly I am so popular," Anne giggled, pretending to bask in their attention. She patted at her bare collarbones. "Let us move, shall we? The air is cooling."

Mark hung back and watched the queen shift from side to side on her mare, her long hair nearly touching the animal's back. He felt the secretary's letter in his pocket, ran his fingers over the seal, and suddenly spurred his horse forward. "I am going to run ahead and inform the secretary," he explained to Anne, pressing is cap to his heart. "I wish you a comfortable journey, Your Majesty. Gentlemen," he nodded at the group of males, in plain and embroidered doublets, and took off.

He found Cromwell pacing back and forth behind the great heavy door of his office, pressing his knuckles against his cheek so he could chew on the tender flesh inside his mouth. Mark noticed that he did this when he was anxious. When Mark was admitted, dusty and half-panting from the gallop back and from dashing through the courtyard and up the stairs, Cromwell looked ready to shake him. "Well?"

"The queen has been found," Mark blurted.

"Found?" A thousand pictures ran through Cromwell's mind as he deconstructed Mark's five words. If Anne had merely gotten lost, he would have said, _the queen is on her way._ If she had been intercepted on her way back, he would have said, _the queen found us._ If she was dead, _the queen is dead_. Cromwell's heart lurched. He pictured her half-bludgeoned, having been found by some angry poor women who recognized her and claimed retribution for The Good Queen Katherine. He pictured her having fallen into the hands of highwaymen, who would rob and rape her without thinking twice. Highwaymen often cut off the hair of women in order to sell it. He thought of Anne without her beautiful hair. "Found?" he repeated, hardly refraining from shouting at Mark.

"Found," Mark repeated. "Not far from Greenwich."

Was that all he was going to say? Cromwell wanted to grab him, shake it out of him. "In what condition?"

"Perfect." The answer was immediate. "She says she simply got separated and was on her way back."

Relief flooded the secretary. "Did you…" Cromwell trailed off.

Mark flicked the letter out and passed it to him. "I tried. She insisted she wanted to return her, so we escorted her and joined with a number of His Majesty's men. They are coming back now."

Footsteps sounded in Cromwell's corridor again. "Enter!" Cromwell bellowed, and in walked Daniel. "Mark, meet Daniel, a royal page. Daniel, Mark."

"How do you do," Daniel said politely.

"How does the king?" Cromwell interrupted.

"Pacing like a lion." Mark noted the description and thought that the secretary had looked similar when he came upon him. "Wants to know what progress."

"Tell him the queen has been found. She is in custody of his men and mine and is en route to the palace now."

Daniel was back not a quarter of an hour later, looking like a puppy who had just been introduced to his master's boot. "His Majesty wants you in the courtyard to meet the queen," he told Cromwell, looking confused even as he said it. "He is on his way there now."

Cromwell snagged Mark's elbow. "You, too."

Thomas Cromwell had seen many different things in his life, but the scene that presented itself on the steps of Greenwich Palace as the sun dipped low in the sky was truly unique. Henry, festooned in brilliant red with gold adornments, lounged and pawed indeed like a lion. Several members of his household had been assembled, as well as the queen's ladies. Vaguely, Cromwell wondered who had sent them. Distant noises told him that the party had arrived at the outer gate and were dismounting, their horses being led away to cool down. "Cromwell," the king acknowledged him with a nod, one hand on a hip like an impatient child.

"Majesty." Cromwell maintained his physical distance, suddenly very uncomfortable at the scene he sensed was about to unfold before him. The merchant-sailor letter had been burned in the fireplace in his own office. Mark stood behind him, silent and shifty-eyed.

Anne came into view at length, walking up the wide cobbled road from the stableyard, flanked on either side by two young men in Tudor jackets. Cromwell noted that Nicholas, William, and Thomas formed a wall at the back of the procession. His eyes shifted from Anne to Henry, who had gone still at her entrance. He watched her come toward him. Anne's eyes took in the scene before her: Henry in the middle of the wide palace stairs, with Cromwell on the left and her ladies clustered on the right, their ivory blending against the walls of Greenwich. Cromwell wondered if it looked like a church scene to her, with Henry as the priest, Cromwell as the almoner, and the ladies as the choir. As Anne approached, she did not check, and her face did not change.

When she reached the stairs, she stopped before them as though at an altar. She curtsied to Henry. "My lord."

"Wife." Henry sniffed. "Where have you been?"

She bobbed back up. "I was riding with my ladies earlier today," she indicated them, "and I was separated. I spent a little time in a forest and was escorted back."

It was a perfectly reasonable answer, but Henry's frustration and anger was so apparent, and perhaps so frightening to him, that he needed a reason to lash out. "And what did you think you were doing, riding out without proper escorts to begin with?"

Anne's brow scrunched. "I have always ridden out with only my ladies," she pointed out.

"You have not always gotten lost," Henry shot back, relentless. "You have not always set the court in a panic. You have not always wasted afternoons. You have not always been such a fool."

In spite of herself, Anne stepped backward. "I did not aim to get lost," she offered. Cromwell watched the stare that passed between husband and wife, watched as Anne lost her nerve. He looked for the cut on her lip from yesterday but did not see it.

"You should be more careful. Does it not bother you that these men have wasted their day in search of you? As though not enough time has been spent on you in the past," he snorted, and Anne's face flinched as though he was swinging a fist at her. "Can you think of no one but yourself?" Henry's face flushed. He raised his voice to the level that one would use when shouting at an unfaithful lover, not a woman who had spent an afternoon riding on her own.

Bewildered: "I am sorry."

"You should be!" Anne shrunk from his bellows, her shoulders squeezing forward in defense of her chest, the way a beast protects its torso from exposure. Cromwell noted that her skin tone nearly matched her white gown, which was uncharacteristically ill-fitting. She must be losing weight, he decided. The shadows around her collarbones confirmed it. Her chest was bare. Had her ladies not said she was wearing pearls? He glanced over at them: nervous faces, eyes darting between king and queen. Everyone looked that way.

"I meant no harm," Anne tried again, her voice soft. Her eyes flicked about, too, instinctively looking for an escape, although she could never take it. Her eyes were captivating, had they always been so?

Henry rolled his eyes. "Surely. You never do. Enough; up to your rooms and no more trouble." With that, he stepped aside and gestured for her to walk past him into the palace. Several long moments dragged as Anne stared at her husband in disbelief at being ordered to her rooms like a child. Slowly, she made her way forward, picked up the ragged hem of her gown, and padded up the steps into the Hall. Her ladies squirmed among themselves for a moment, embroidered damask rippling like bedsheets, before scurrying after their mistress.

The men were left standing about and staring at one another as they all tried not to look at the king. Cromwell wondered why he had assembled them out here for this public display of his temper. To show his power? With the sunlight glancing off Henry's red jacket and illuminating Anne's white shroud, Cromwell thought they looked rather more like demon and angel.

"Thank you all for your vigilance and service," Henry smiled generously at the scattered black jackets, then turned to Cromwell: "Come."

Back in Henry's rooms, as the king muttered "ridiculous" and "selfish woman," Cromwell kept a blank face and wondered what Henry was looking for in his apothecary box. The king had, by reports, been on the brink of hysteria at the prospect of Anne being harmed; now she was back and he his feelings for her reverted to disgust. A person could get dizzy trying to follow the king's emotions over the course of a single day.

Henry shoved a small brown vial at him. "Give this to her."

His hand came up to get it: "What is it?"

"Give it to her, put it in her wine, I care not. I need peace." The king rubbed his temples. "There are few ways to silence that woman." He looked to Cromwell for agreement. Personally, Cromwell thought Anne had been quite silent on the steps just now.

He sought a question that would be acceptable. "Will she taste it?"

Henry shook his head. "Not unless she is a sorceress. So perhaps." He walked Cromwell to the door, put a hand on his arm, looked into his face. For one moment, he feared the king could read his thoughts. Then Henry said, "The work done is good, but it must come faster, Tom. D'you understand?" Cromwell nodded. Henry looked strangled by that jacket, his eyes burning brighter and his face beginning to flush again. "It's there. It's yours to find. Get it from her ladies." With that, he opened the door and propelled his secretary out.

Sick at his stomach, Cromwell put the bottle in his pocket. He went straight to the queen's rooms, not caring who saw him. As he expected, the queen's women were all tucked away in some distant corner, probably in her bedchamber, stripping her bare out of her ruined dress. He tried not to let his mind form that image. The jug of wine on the table in the small room where libations were kept was filled halfway, and he paused, asking himself how to manage this. The king had obviously meant for only Anne to drink this, and he had no choice but to administer it, lest he have to answer to the king about why she was not asleep within the hour. But it would hardly do for her whole household to fall unconscious, and that would insinuate foul play. No window to pour it out of. He swirled the wine in the jug, then poured it into waiting goblets. Four. Right. He would drink three.

He nearly gagged: was this wine all sugar? The brown bottle appeared, small and lethal. He paused. What if this was not a sleeping draft but poison? What if he killed her? He remembered daydreaming of killing her in this exact way, but at a banquet rather than alone in her rooms. He did not want to kill her. He shook it off. Henry would not make that mistake. He would not kill her by this method. It would be lawful, public, not covert. Cromwell sniffed the solution, and smelled nothing. It seemed like a lot. What was the proper dosage? Anne obviously had no fat on her; to give too much could be a death sentence. Bile built in Cromwell's stomach as he began to fear being seen. He emptied a third of the bottle into the single remaining goblet, knowing that Anne would receive the only available wine, and the ladies would wait for more. It was a small amount, but it would be enough put her to sleep. He would not be responsible for hurting her.

Cromwell turned, satisfied, and found the copper-haired girl staring at him from the threshold. He could never remember her name. Wondering how long she had been standing there, he picked up the wine and handed it to her. "For the queen." Her eyes were wide. She looked afraid of him. He saw his advantage. "Give this to her."

"What did you put in it?"

_Hell_. "A relaxing posset."

"Not poison?"

"Of course not. Something recommended by a physician." Well, Henry's physician had probably recommended it to Henry at some point.

She held her ground, the goblet at an arm's length as though she would not accept it. "Why can a physician not bring it to her?"

"It is the king's wish." He looked hard at her. "You recognize my face, mistress. I recognize yours as well. I will not forget it." He indicated the goblet. "That is for the queen. Do you understand?"

She backed up a few steps. "Yes, my lord." He nodded and brushed past her. Her imploring voice followed him: "It is not dangerous?"

"No. You have my word." As he walked back toward his office, clenching the brown bottle in his pocket, Cromwell tried to remember the last honest conversation he had had with someone. He tried to remember what giving someone one's word meant to most people, what it had meant when it had meant something to him.

**UP NEXT:**

"Her conduct in my line of vision is without fault. I will not be swayed into saying something accusatory. Perhaps it would be best to leave me, as Jane's sister, out of this entirely."

He smirked. "Ah, but as I recall, you were given ample opportunity to leave the queen's service altogether. You cannot pick and choose which responsibilities you'd like as a member of her household, madam."

Lissie nodded in understanding. "But," she held up one index finger, "what about when Jane is queen? Will you not need someone to pass information to and from her?" Her smirk mirrored his own. "I feel certain you do not wish to rely upon my brothers."

"And why would I rely upon you, when you will not even cooperate now?"

"My survival, as a Seymour, would depend on it then."

His eyes flashed with genuine interest. He settled into his chair. "You do not think your survival depends on this interview?"

"Not really. I can hardly imagine you beating me to death. At this point, my brothers would do worse than you. I endure it. They think they have control now, and you let them think that, but I imagine when my sister is crowned that much of that pretense will fly the chamber. They will no longer steer our ship; you will. It seems the wiser loyalty to cultivate."

He looked at her unassuming face, a button nose much more attractive than her sister's, a few freckles here and there. She looked like any pretty lady of the court. Who would have thought she possessed abilities of reckoning on par with himself?


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: Hi! Missed you guys! So this chapter is a little shorter but jam-packed with all kinds of stuff, and I actually switched things up so the previewed section didn't make it into this chapter – sorry! It'll be here next time. I hope you enjoy, we have some solid Anne-Cromwell interaction here. Anne's literally losing it but forcing herself to hold it together, and successfully. At times.**

**PS, I feel like I may have mentioned this before, but I can't be bothered to check back through every author's note I've ever written. I envision Jane Seymour as being played by Annabelle Wallis, not Anita Briem.**

IronPen, no need to apologize – thank you so much for reviewing! I am pleased that Cromwell's concern for Anne is coming through in an endearing way. I'm trying to keep it subtle but palpable, and make it increase as we go. Henry is awful right now, yes, I agree. So glad you enjoyed the Anne-Melusine scene, I loved writing that! It was completely impromptu, but sometimes those scenes are the best ones. I am finished with Yale now, I workshopped some new historical fiction (more commercial – I am hoping to have it published) that tells the story of Anne before Henry fell in love with her (read: Henry Percy, James Butler, and Mary Boleyn sleeping with the king). I'm aiming for _Wolf Hall_ meets _The Other Boleyn Girl_. It got great reviews and feedback so I'm plowing on with it!

Rachael Nikol, welcome and endless thanks for the review. I am so glad you're attracted to my subject matter – it is a hurdle for a lot of readers, as they communicate to me. I love the Cromwell-Anne dynamic and that's where the whole potential of my story was born. I won't let the story die, I'm so pleased you like it. I am planning at least one more Jane/Anne run-in before the conclusion of the story (which isn't for another 13 or so chapters – it's quite an in-depth plotline). I am trying to parallel as many of those things as I can, because I find them interesting – Seymour to Boleyn family dynamic and strategy, the position of the ladies-in-waiting, etc. … enjoy and let me know how you like it!

Alyson, thank you for the compliments on my writing, I appreciate those so much. Also, I love the detailed feedback – nothing helps me more as a writer than to know what translates well for my readers and what does not. Please don't be upset, Anne's death will be phenomenal. Promise. LOL I think Crom and Anne work well together (in this context anyway) too! They are a tragic and, as you pointed out, disturbing example in many ways, and in that sense I see them as a microcosm of Tudor and more specifically Henrician court politics and faction. (I have a degree in Tudor England, so my interest is very academic.) The TV show gives them such unique interactions that it inspired me to think of this AU set of circumstances, which has evolved into this massive story that I've been writing for, yikes, 2.5 years. LOL again, I wish Henry had been less "chop chop" happy – that's what happens when you spoil a monarch, right? Can you imagine Anne's and Cromwell's sons, btw? Seriously, watch out England. I hope that the tension between Cromwell planning Anne's death, i.e. doing his job, and him developing a fixation on her is coming through satisfactorily. That's a big challenge – to show him going back and forth and struggling with it himself, and doing it subtly enough that I don't have to tell you because I am showing you. As for the "proper way," we'll see, won't we? And I am also pleased to hear I incorporate the underlings well, as I get carried away sometimes. I feel like I could write a story about each of them. But I won't. =) Do review again if you can!

Guest – thank you for your kind words and congratulations! I had a wonderful time at Yale and learned SO much, both about my writing and the process in general. It was an invaluable experience. I'm glad you enjoyed the tense little Anne-Jane moment and the confusing inner turmoil of the key male figures in the story, and I hope this chapter delivers even more satisfaction in the drama category.

ValueMyHeart, Thank you! I loved Melusine and felt she was a great supporting character for Anne's musings. Do review again if you can!

i.

28 April, 1536

Afternoon

Lissie all but dove forward to help support the queen as she crumbled, stiff as a wildflower stem, toward the floor. Bess Dormer had been hovering near the queen for the past several minutes, after serving Anne a goblet of wine and some fruit. It was uncharacteristic of Bess to hang onto the queen's side – normally that was Nan's post – but it was lucky that she had, Lissie marveled as she threw her arms around them both. Had no one been standing there when the queen collapsed, who knew what injury may have befallen Her Majesty.

As ivory dresses swarmed the queen, Lissie began to panic. Anne was limp in her hands. She wanted to shake her. "Majesty?" she hissed.

"She's all right," Bess Dormer said, with an air of authority, as she hoisted the queen upward. "Help me put her into her bed."

Nan had worked her way into the thick of things. "Breathing," she confirmed, helping the other ladies slide Anne toward her pillows. "Probably just exhaustion." She shot a look at Bess Dormer. "Did you get her to eat anything this time?"

"I tried," Bess defended herself. "She ate part of an apple."

"Exhaustion," Madge Shelton clucked in agreement. "It's been, what, two days since she ate a proper meal." She tugged Anne's riding boots off and began peeling her stockings away. The movements did not even jar the sleeping raven. "We could probably bathe and coif her, so much does she know."

Nan bit her lip. "She's miserable. Wretched. The king…" she trailed off, shook her head. The ladies worked Anne out of her white dress, leaving her in her linen shift. "It will have to do for now. Was she not wearing a pearl necklace when we left for the ride?"

Bess nodded. "Yes. She was not wearing it when she came back."

"And look at her hands…"

"Mistress Seymour?"

The ladies whirled to find a page hovering in the doorway. Lissie stepped forward. "Yes?"

"Your sister requires your assistance." He looked to be bracing himself. All eyes turned on Elizabeth, and she wanted to do the same. She sighed, dropping the queen's stocking on the bed, and emerged from the cluster of maids, feeling the heat of their glares on her back.

"Sounds about right."

ii.

29 April

Morning

Try as she might, Anne could not lift the look of gloom from her face, even as the sun shone down upon her. She floated through the garden, her slippers barely crunching the loose stones beneath her feet, kicking at the hem of her brilliant gown. She had meant to save this gown for the impending trip to France, but suddenly she could not resist the scarlet satin any longer. The sleeves did not cover her hands, so she could not pick at the skin around her fingernails as she often did. If only her courtiers knew that, beneath the stony expression and the immaculate outfits, the Queen of England constantly shredded the flesh of her fingertips, concealing it beneath her fashionable sleeves.

Anne looked down at her hands. They were tender, chapped; when she had awakened suddenly from her slumber this morning, her disorientation had heightened as she realized that her hands were wrapped in thick layers of gauze, under which was some thick salve that coated her hands like grease. Frantically, she had washed and rubbed her hands clean, only to find them red and raw. When her ladies convened in her bedchamber, Nan Saville being conspicuously absent, they had informed her that her hands were cracked and verging on bleeding after her gloveless ride the previous day. They still stung. Anne pressed them together for warmth, then dropped them to her sides. She hated fidgeting, hated that she could never break her cuticle-picking habit.

At the sound of a crunch on the stones far behind her, Anne's shoulders slumped. She felt ready to burst into tears, frustrated and desperate, and simultaneously calmly hopeless. The weight of her emotions was crushing her. Footsteps closed in on her, the strides sure, light. A man's step. Would she never have peace? No. She had learnt that yesterday. She berated herself for not taking advantage of her sojourn in the forest as a chance to weep. She berated herself for taking it at all. She berated herself for not accepting the subtle and meaningful offer that Cromwell's boys had extended to her.

Without much surprise, Anne realized that it was Cromwell who was catching up to her. He was the only man of the court who really had any business with her, the deserted queen. Her father and brother only came when it was expedient, and it was certainly not that today. She kept her pace, partly praying he would go away, partly indifferent. The step checked a few armlengths behind her. A soft rustling of fabric. Inexplicable fear gripped her. "Majesty."

"Cromwell." She did not turn, did not slow. Let him keep up with her.

"How fare you this morning?"

"I am well. And yourself?"

He fell into step beside her. "Well also."

"And?" She turned her neck to face him, not bothering to arrange her face. To his credit, his expression did not falter at the sight of her heavy eyelids. "The king has sent you, I presume."

"Why would you presume that, Your Majesty?"

"No one comes for me unless the king sends them. No one but my ladies." She thought of their downcast eyes this morning, their uncharacteristic quietness as they transacted the steps of her morning routine. "So what do you want?"

Cromwell cleared his throat. "I wanted to speak with you about a few of the gentlemen who frequent your rooms. I understand they may have displayed too great an affection for Your Majesty, verging on harassment. I wish to know if Your Majesty has felt troubled or violated in any way."

The words hung heavy in the air. At last: "No. I have not. Thank you and thank the king for his concern."

He must have known it would not be that easy. "Majesty, I have been informed that there are some questions concerning the conduct of a handful…"

"What is this?" she asked quietly, sorrowfully. She slowed her pace, but kept moving. "Is it to be adultery, then? Surely…" she cast a long, searching glance into his face. Cromwell had difficulty drawing in breath under her gaze, and he dropped his head as though in shame when she dragged her eyes from his. She could not bear to look at him. She shook her head. "I have witnessed no ill conduct in my rooms. What my ladies do in their hours of leisure, I could not tell you. You would have to ask them." She was looking at the ground and missed his guilty flinch.

"The reports…"

"Whose?"

"They have circulated."

"Between? You and Henry. A small circle that is." She could not muster a smirk.

Cromwell swallowed. She could sense his discomfort. "Majesty, I do not wish to trouble you."

"Perhaps not." She punctuated her simple response with a flick of her head as she stopped short, her dress continuing up the path as the breeze caught it before settling around her feet. Cromwell continued on a step or two, perhaps deliberately, perhaps meaning to put space between them. He looked as haggard as she felt. "Whatever lies you fabricate, whatever technicalities you unearth…" Anne shook her head.

"The legal system prevents unjust inquiries, unjust hearings, unjust convictions and acquittals, Majesty, you know that."

"And the rack? The Tower? The closed-in stone rooms, damp with the smell of death and fear of those who precede you? Your fists on the table, Cromwell, your threats, your promises, what do they prevent?" Cromwell cringed at the spike in her voice. Anne's eyes widened and filled with tears as it dawned on her. "Is that why my ladies will hardly look me in the eye this morning?" Her voice cracked. She shivered.

"Majesty…"

She twisted her face in an attempt to contain herself. "And where is Nan? Nan, too? She is my only friend, you know." Hot silence flew between them. "Well." Anne sniffed once, a long, congested sound, and drew herself up to her full height. She continued down the path. "If you've finished those interviews, I should think you can achieve your goal without this one. Whatever I say, whatever truths I speak, are useless. Leave me."

His steps were nearly on her hem, his voice hoarse. "Your Majesty, wait. Anne." He stuttered over his mistake. "Queen Anne."

"I am shocked that you know my first name."

"Stop."

"Sweet Lord, does my word truly mean nothing anymore? I am still the queen. Did I not just ask you to leave me?" She quickened her step, and he was at her side.

"I have been asked to take your statement…"

"You just took it."

He jumped in her way, just like he had, yesterday, the day before, whenever it was. The cut on her lip. "Please. I mean you no harm."

Anne snorted. "Really, none? You know, Cromwell… when I heard you behind me, walking up the path to catch me, your step checked a moment and I thought to myself, 'God, is he pulling his dagger then? Is this to be how it ends?'" She cocked an eyebrow at his bewildered face. "Come, it is not so wild. The river right there, the hedges right here, my gown is even red to conceal the stains. A knife in the back, is that not how men like you operate? And do you know what? I wish you had. I wish you had put the blade between my ribs and I wish that was that. No more of this courtly dance, this saltarello. This slow destruction of me, before my eyes, where you show me each step and then pretend I have not seen it, then you ask me to hand you the canvas and thread your needle, and look shocked when I do not want to do it. I would rather it be quick and painful, bleeding to death and drowning at once, than spread over days, weeks, months, as it were. What are you so afraid of? I am sure the king will buy you a new coat, never mind the blood. It will be on your hands either way. You know that."

Cromwell swallowed, his nerves visible. "Is that all?"

"If you wish to walk with me, fine. But I will not entertain any of this talk. I sense that the days in which I am able to walk here are numbered, that my opportunities to be myself are dwindling, and I will not surrender any shred of myself to you." She paused. "Any more than I have."

He turned her last five words over and over in his mind, asking himself if he had misheard, misunderstood, misconstrued. There were days, hours where he still thought he might have imagined it. Her relative steadiness sickened him in the face of his own crumbling composure. He stepped aside, swept an arm outward, bowed his head deferentially. "Majesty."

"I wonder how many times per day you say that word."

No further invitation was needed. He was in step beside her again, their pace slow and comfortable. He noted how slumped her shoulders were, as they rippled in a shiver despite the spring sunshine. Even her hair seemed deadened, combed to straightness and falling down her back in defeat. "I will keep a count tomorrow."

She gave an obligatory chuckle. The silence lasted just over a minute. "So it is determined?" Her tone was disinterested. It was obvious what she meant.

"Nothing is, yet."

"Come. If my ladies have been…" she trailed off. "Please consider Nan. She is the pinnacle of loyalty. That deserves reward. Even if it be misplaced."

"Misplaced?"

"She has obviously put her service to the wrong person." Cromwell did not respond. "If all this has been transacted and you are here purportedly taking my statement, it may as well be done. I can hardly believe…" she shook her head, frustrated with her wandering mind. She could not seem to focus, to grab hold of herself.

"You mustn't think yourself an undeserving mistress," Cromwell said suddenly. "You have treated your household with dignity and respect. None of them could ask for better." He looked at her as they rounded a corner. "You really thought I would take a knife to you?"

That could not be hurt in his voice. She shrugged. "I hardly know what I think. It is difficult to explain. I feel myself breaking apart, I begin to disintegrate, I stitch myself back together, but I pull the stitches too tight. I let them out a little, and I begin to feel them breaking apart again. It never ends."

"You have a way with words. Have you ever thought of writing?"

Anne threw her head back and laughed. "Ah, writing. Best leave that to Wyatt." She flicked her eyes sideways, and her hand fluttered up, grazed his sleeve tentatively. "Spare Wyatt. Please. He has done nothing. Ever. Spare him." She dropped her fingers. "Writing, words, paragraphs. No. I never even kept a diary."

"Perhaps you should start."

"What, so it would live on after I am gone? No one would read it. It would be destroyed."

He cleared his throat quietly. "I would keep it."

"You would be a fool. Even more of a fool than to murder me in broad daylight, is that not something? I am…" she waved her arms, less dramatic for the lack of hanging sleeves, in the air above her head. She laughed. "I am the Queen of England. But you could have stabbed me dead back there, and what consequence would you have suffered? Probably struggling under the weight of a new ermine cloak, a wink from my mourning husband." Her arms hugged her torso. She was chilled, uncomfortable.

Cromwell was uncomfortable, too, but for different reasons. "I should make my way inside, Majesty."

"I, too. I feel tired," she mused as if to herself, "but… I slept so long and so deeply last night. From yesterday afternoon, in fact. Although I am sure you knew that." A tight smile.

His heart clenched a little as uncertainty gripped him again: what did she mean by that? "I did hear, yes, Majesty."

"You hear everything, you know everything." Their pace slowed as they neared a fork in the path that would take one of them back toward the riverbank and the other back into Greenwich. "You remember everything. If this, if the men, the concerns, the… if this is to be it, I cannot stop you. We both know I cannot." She saw confusion in his face, and it matched her own bewilderment at the state of her life. "You will bring it to pass, I have no doubt. You always remember everything."

They both wanted her to stop babbling, and so Cromwell stopped in front of her, her back to the palace. "Majesty. Enjoy your walk. I must for my office."

"Enjoy your office. Your desk, all those – papers," she said slowly, half afraid of what he might think she meant. "All those words. You think I am good at words, but they seem to be all you do. Words, memorizing, remembering, cutting them apart and drawing them back together. But never too tightly. So they never fall apart again, they are solid, they cover all, truth, transgressions." She trailed off again, troubled. Cromwell waited for an opportunity to leave, for her to dismiss him. She shivered again, and he realized she had broken out in gooseflesh. The red glare from her dress caused him to squint. How did she manage in such colours? He looked at her square neckline, the same as the black she had worn during their last interview, just days ago. She aged daily. Apparently the posset did not have the effect of causing restful sleep: her undereyes were mottled and sunken. He wondered if it had caused this blurred mental state as well. He was on the verge of excusing himself against protocol, with which he felt they could fairly well dispose at this point anyway, when Anne raised her innocent face and softly asked him, "D'you ever think about it?"

He stood rooted, too stunned to even step back from her. The sun beat down on his face and on hers, spoiling her skin, but what matter, she would be dead soon anyway. He found himself wishing he had a dagger now, too. She could not be left to her own devices speaking thus. He would send word to the king immediately that she seemed half mad. He would have to work quickly. She was losing her wits. But her eyes seemed clear, as he looked into them, clearer in fact than they had before. It was an honest question.

Anne became acutely aware of herself, of her limp hair and her lack of jewelry or cosmetics. She was barely even wearing perfume. Her head ached. She wondered if this would be how it was, from here until, when, that she would have superficial conversations, dally on about nonsense, wait for a knife, and be half relieved and half disappointed when it did not come. Maybe she had a knife in her rooms that would do the trick, and save them all the trouble. Even then, Cromwell would have blood on his hands. Anne's eyes lingered on his white collar, thinking, remembering, nothing. She cleared her throat as Cromwell bowed, pretending she had asked nothing, and walked toward her, past her, into Greenwich's yawning Great Hall. Anne remained still, and she closed her eyes as he passed her, his eyes on hers. She wanted to break the stare first. He deliberately brushed her shoulder as he bent his head to hers, his mouth almost against her hair, his tongue close to her ear. She stood alone in the sunlight, not looking after the man who would bring her life to its conclusion as he swept up the path and into her palace. His strangled words hovered in her ear. They absolved her, vindicated her, damned her.

"Of course I think about it."

iii.

The Previous Evening – 28 April

"Janey," Lissie wedged a pin into her sister's honeycombed curls and flipped it over to secure it, "I just fear for you."

"I cannot think why." Jane's mouth plucked the words lightly, examining her plumped lips in the mirror as Lissie slid another pin into place. "The king plainly loves and is pleased by me."

Lissie barely held back a sigh. "But consider…"

"What?" Jane turned her head suddenly, and Elizabeth's fingers barely kept up with Jane's coif. "Are you envious that I have finally caught the attention of a man, and a king at that? Does it irk you that your older sister is the one that the king desires?" Jane turned back to face front, crossing her arms across her chest like a petulant child. Where had this behaviour come from? This was not her sister. "Do not tell me what I should consider. This is my destiny, to be the Queen of England, to help steer this realm toward Rome, don't you see? I will be the mother of the next King of England."

_Surely_, Elizabeth thought. _Not as though two women and nearly three decades have failed there. _"I hope and trust it will be so. But… Jane. You and I have been at court a long time. The king is not a kind husband when he tires of a wife. We saw him turn from Queen Katherine. We saw her take him."

"With her witchcraft."

Lissie bit back a retort. Anne was many things, but she was not a witch. "But listen to me. Have we not seen her suffer too? Both his queens? Think how he loved them each, at times. Think how he came to treat them." She rushed ahead before Jane could stop her, suddenly genuinely afraid for her sister, thinking of the axe, the poison, the cold stare and harsh bellow of the king being used on Jane. "Say you please your husband to no end. Say you satisfy him in bed. Say you conceive quickly, carry it to term, and give birth. Say it lives. Say it is a son. Say you live. Say you stay queen until the day you die."

"And?"

"D'you think he will be faithful to you? What of his infidelities? Have you become so blind that you fail to recognize his nature?"

It was clear that Jane had been tutored on this exact subject. "I will bear them with grace as did Queen Katherine. It is Anne's tantrums that have driven the wedge between them." She met her sister's eyes in the mirror. "I am not as dim as I look. I will be able to manage myself with him. I have so far."

Lissie angled her head forward just slightly, trying to reach Jane with the depth of her facial expression. "But do you want a life," she whispered, "where every day is pain, every day is a struggle? We have seen two women married to him, and it brought neither of them much joy."

"Elizabeth," Jane's expression was steady, although her voice quavered on the second syllable of her sister's name, almost as though she was trying to appeal to Lissie as well, "you do not marry a king for joy."

iv.

A collective hush descended upon the Hall when Henry led Jane up the stairs to the dais and pulled out the chair beside him. Jane stepped back, aghast, her wide brown eyes swiveling in her skull to find her brother, _advise me, quickly_. "Sit," Henry smiled, "Her Majesty is ill this evening. I should like some pleasant female company."

She could not find Edward, it seemed, and she moved hesitantly to the chair. Nan watched her, a cold fist closing in on her stomach. There was the answer. Nan swallowed and unconsciously shuffled backward, putting distance between herself and this disgrace. It already felt like a betrayal to have left the queen alone in her rooms.

When the buzz overtook the hall again, Nan looked around. "What happened to Madge?" Bess Dormer shrugged.

"I thought she was walking in with us, but she's gone."

"I should go and check on Her Majesty."

Bess stayed her with a hand on her wrist. "It's been a quarter hour. She is fine." Furtively, added, "you might have a care for how visibly you align yourself with her," before releasing Nan.

"Political advice, Mistress Dormer? How novel."

Mary Shelton all but tumbled into Nan. "Can you believe-?" she spluttered, eyes flicking between the dais and Nan's face as if in panic. "D'you think we are supposed to sit at our regular table? It will look as if we are serving…"

"No choice," Lissie Seymour cut her off. She looked as regretful as anyone. "We cannot break protocol, especially not before the king. Think of how it would look. Where is your sister?" she nudged Mary.

"I haven't an inkling. I would ask the same of you, but for once, she's quite visible."

"Mmm," Lissie grunted, grabbing the last goblet of wine from a page's tray. She gulped it and passed it back to him. "More, much more."

Henry engaged Jane in conversation throughout the meal, but their conversation looked halting, uncomfortable. Jane appeared as an angel descended to earth who had aimed for the altar but missed and landed in the brothel. She nodded and smiled, and murmured assent, but she spent much of the time looking at her hands. Nan looked up when a chair scraped behind her and saw a dazed Madge Shelton flopping down. "Where've you been?"

"About," Madge sighed. "Sister, would you please fetch me a goblet of wine?"

Mary Shelton rolled her eyes. "Just call me your maid."

"I will take it into mind," Madge called after her, then watched her disappear into the crowd. She surveyed Jane's seat on the throne without surprise. "No word from Her Majesty? She slumbers still?"

"She is fine," Nan said reassuringly, as much to calm herself. "I may go check on her later." Madge nodded, then beckoned a page with a goblet-leaden tray over. "Did Mary not just go to get you a glass?"

"Never hurts to have more than one," Madge said lightly.

"We are all turning into drunks lately," Lissie snorted, sipping from her own glass. "Who could blame us?" She looked up at her sister and shook her head.

The evening tripped by, sloshing like a swollen brook in the springtime. Mary Shelton did not return with wine; instead, she appeared in her chair an hour later, uncharacteristically somber. "No witty young men about tonight?" Nan teased, trying to lighten the mood.

"Guess not," Mary managed, propping both elbows on the table. The Sheltons met eyes as if by accident, and Madge glanced away guiltily. Mary stared for a moment and then dropped her eyes. "I am sorry I did not bring your wine, sister." Her voice was harsh. Madge shook her head, eyes averted.

Bess suddenly pushed back her chair and stood. "I am going to get some fresh air, ladies, excuse me," she nodded, her voice soft and confused.

"Everyone all right?" Lissie asked uneasily. "I may have a half jug of wine in my belly, but are we usually not more amicable than this?"

Nan shrugged. "It is an unusual night. But, then, it is nearly done. Nearly done." Henry and Jane had danced several turns together, and were making their way back to their chairs – how easy it was to slip into considering the queen's chair to belong to Jane – both glowing from the exertion. They made a beautiful couple, Jane's eyes glittering as she grew more comfortable and engaged Henry in conversation. It was like the Hall was empty and no one else existed in the world.

As the banquet wound down, Lissie drew her chair close to Nan's. "Something unusual is occurring," she whispered.

Nan raised her eyebrows as though Lissie were stupid. "I should say so, yes."

"No, I mean… Cromwell is not here. He is always by the king's side, but not tonight."

"I suppose that's true," Nan remarked, surprised. "To tell you the truth, I had not noticed. I guess that's the danger with Cromwell, isn't it? So subtle you'd never notice, yet so powerful you can't afford to miss him."

"And where's Bess?" Lissie rambled on. "She's been gone nearly an hour. Mary was gone before that, and before that we were missing Madge. We are always a head short tonight. You and I are the only ones who have not gone missing." She tapped her lips.

"What, do you think they are off taking turns with Cromwell?" Nan snorted in laughter. Lissie remained silent.

"All I am saying is that it is worth noting." Lissie shrugged. "God knows I am too warm with wine to be of much use anyway. May as well continue. Plum this time, I think." She was on her feet and lost in the crowd before Nan could blink. King Henry stood, took his leave, kissed Jane's hand gallantly and thanked her for being such an exemplary courtier, and bid them all a good night. Edward Seymour was at Jane's side within the minute, hustling her down from the dais and out a discreet door into the corridor, probably back to her rooms for interrogation and documentation and discussion and heaven knows what. Several minutes later, Bess emerged from the thinning crowd and approached Nan.

"Have you been in to see the Queen?"

"No. Where have you been?"

Bess wrinkled her brow. "I told you I was stepping outside for a spell."

"Quite a lengthy spell it was."

Now Bess twisted her face in bewilderment. "It was no more than a quarter hour. What's gotten into you? Too much wine?" She shook her head. "Anyway, I am for my bed. Goodnight, ladies."

"I, too," Madge hauled herself out of her chair and left without another word.

"And you, Mary?"

"I see Thomas Wyatt," Mary said without a hint of bluster. Her voice was low, raw, even desperate. "So hopefully I am for a bed, but not mine." She looked Nan in the eye. "God bless you, Nan. Have a good night."

_Is there a full moon tonight?_ Nan wondered. She had never seen a more curious sequence of people acting out of character. And where had Lissie gone? Looking around, Nan could count the number of people in the Hall. It was well past midnight. She was safe now. So, back to the queen's rooms she went, tiptoeing in case she might wake Her Majesty. She pushed the door to the queen's inner bedchamber open, half afraid of what she might see, but Anne was curled on her side, her dark hair spread across the pillow, just as Nan had arranged her. Her breathing was slow and deep. Nan's own breath was relieved. She would stay awhile, only a little while, and then sleep. She backed into a chair at the far end of the room, a respectable distance from the queen's bed. The wall was not so bad. She had rested her head here many times before.

Some time later, Nan was shaken awake at the sound of the bedchamber door opening. She froze, waiting to see who it was. To her shock, Thomas Cromwell emerged from behind the door. His hair was tousled as though he had just run his hands through it, but otherwise he was immaculate. His attire confirmed that he had not set foot in the banqueting hall tonight. He advanced into the room several steps, making it halfway to the queen's bed, before he stopped. Hands lifeless at his sides, Cromwell stared at Anne for well over a minute. Finally, Nan cleared her throat. Cromwell started and turned but did not look altogether surprised to see her.

"Mistress Saville."

"Master Cromwell."

"How is the queen?"

Nan paused. "She is living."

Cromwell actually chuckled. "God, let us hope so. And how are you?"

"I have been better," Nan admitted, though she knew not why she would say such a thing to such a man.

He took two steps toward her, thinking, weighing his choice of words. "I can imagine. Truly. I have stood at the side of a waning star, Nan." She swallowed and stared at him. "I would like to have a word with you."

"We are having a word right now."

A black-wrapped arm was held out to her. "Walk with me. I will do you no harm," he added when she hesitated.

"Is this what has detained all the other ladies tonight?"

He smiled. "You might say that."

"Then I would rather not."

A deep breath. "Mistress Saville, I need a word with you and it is the king's express command that I get it this evening. The sun will rise within two hours, I have spent much time looking for you, and I suggest that you come with me for a short sojourn. You will be back in your room before dawn." One hand beckoned. Nan took it in spite of herself.

"No harm will come to her?" she asked as they left the bedchamber. The door closed softly behind them, and Nan stretched her neck, her mind foggy from sleep and disorientation.

"I have no desire to do the queen harm. You said it yourself. She is well." Cromwell gestured at the outer door of Anne's gallery. Nan obliged and led him out, thinking that she had said the queen was living, not well; thinking that she would tell Lissie she had been right, but Lissie probably already knew that; and thinking it was curious that Cromwell had spent so long looking for her, but she still had to clear her throat in the queen's bedchamber to get him to turn around and find her.

**UP NEXT:**

"Sir Thomas!" Anne chimed, surging against him like a wave upon the shore. He smelled her perfume for a moment, just a moment, thank Jesus.

"Majesty," he made an attempt to bow, hoping she did not catch his scent as well, for he smelt of unadulterated adultery, the heady perfume of Mary Shelton's sex still palpable on his skin and in his hair. "How fare you?"

Her eyes danced. "I am mortal, Tom, and we've got to do something about it."

As usual, he was lost already. "Mortal, madam?"

"Yes!" She tapped her index finger on his ear. "Mortal, human, I shan't live forever. I am no goddess."

Though he thought her every bit a goddess, Wyatt managed to cock his head earnestly. "My lady, I am afraid I cannot follow your meaning."

She pulled herself against him again, weaving her arm through his, shoulder to shoulder as they strolled down the gallery floor in the opposite direction that he had meant to go. "Poetry, Tom, I've realized that I wish to be immortalized in poetry. I pray for a writer with talents such as yours to pen my legacy." She smirked up at him. "And not as the fire that burnt you or the hind that teased you. I wish others to know my merits, and I sense that I will not be able to demonstrate them before…"

"Before?"

"Well. I think you can do it best," she amended, backing out of a prophesy that she knew better than to make. She spun in front of him now, clasping both his hands in hers. "You know me best, you respect me, Tom, I know you would never desecrate me or my image, or my queenship. I know the friendly love that you and I bear for one another."

"Yes," Wyatt breathed, stopping her before he sickened all over her. It was too much, this testimony of his purity of intention and emotion toward her, as though he had not ravaged the woman at court who looked most like her last night, mouthed "Anne" over and over with his mouth closed while in the act, awoken this morning with a raven mane on his chest and silently renounced God when he realized that, again, it was not her hair. "Yes. What would you have me do?"

She leaned her face toward his, her eyes mesmerizing. "Write about me," she whispered. "Promise me."

"Yes," he whispered back.

Anne held his gaze for a long moment, drinking him in, and then stepped back and began to laugh, a relieved laugh. "Ah, Master Wyatt. I thank you from the depths of my soul. I shall truly need that… after." She made a little fluttering motion with one hand, shrugged, and spun to walk away. Her ruby gown swirled after her, swishing in her wake as if apologizing to him and taunting him at the same time. That was Anne. Glorify me, but don't touch me. My legacy, my name, it's yours, but not my thighs. No wonder he had so much to say about her.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: Hello everyone! Missed you guys! Here's our next chapter which, I will warn you, might be the craziest one in the whole story (although chapter 33 is going to be a doozy). It takes place during the night that the last chapter skipped, going straight to the next afternoon. So Anne is still asleep for the whole thing, and Cromwell has one heck of an interesting evening. This is interspersed with the scene from the ladies' point of view during the banquet that was in the last chapter, so to fill in the gaps, it might be nice to skim over that one after you read this, if you find it jarring. I will also note that the version of the events depicted in this chapter is different than the one presented in the series, because I have a different trajectory happening.**

**The last section jumps forward to after Anne and Cromwell walk in the garden the following day; the next chapter will continue in normal chronology.**

**Please review and let me know how you like it!**

**PS, there is no Elizabeth Seymour (Lissie) on the show, obviously, but she did exist in real life. I envision her as being played by Rosamund Pike, circa P&P. Beautiful actress. (I point that out because she has become an increasingly pivotal character and developed further than I intended to make her – that's the thing with characters, sometimes they do things you don't plan on them doing.) We'll have a great look at Lissie this chapter.**

Alyson, thank you for both your reviews! They are of older chapters (are you caught up to where I am writing right now, or are you taking your time?), and I love hearing that perspective as I move forward with the story. Your perception of Henry is spot-on, and I could not agree more about the fall during the jousting tournament being a likely cause for his instability and warped personality episodes later in life. His medical history is fascinating, but I also think that psychologically he had a large hand in his own undoing. His long wait for Anne changed him drastically. It changed both of them and altered the dynamic of their relationship as well. Henry became petulant and willful, determined that he had suffered enough in getting what he wanted and that those about him with the power to provide him with the solutions to his problems – legally and legitimately – namely Cromwell, should do so. Henry fascinates me, absolutely fascinates me. I am working on some "real" historical fiction that I recently began, and I hope to have it published someday, and I will say that although I have written hundreds of pages in primary-source based research about him (I have a degree in Tudor England), he is so difficult to pin down. There are so many ways to read him. I digress. Elizabeth Seymour has become a fantastic character and I wonder so much about what she was like in real life. I hope you like what I do with her in this chapter, I am eager to hear =) And as for the dance scene, I am so happy that you felt the tension! I find it hard to write tension without being overly self-indulgent as a writer. Ah yes, Cromwell is getting a little more interested and appreciative than he wants to be, or is willing to admit he is. Wonder how that will end…

Rae, I am so glad you loved this chapter! (Also, my middle name is Rae.) Yes, I think most people in this situation would begin to lose it a little bit. I liked that imagery of mending herself, sewing herself together but too tightly, then letting them out and having them loosen. It gets hard sometimes to think of good metaphors and images that work to illustrate my points on a sixteenth-century level. I'm so flattered to hear that you wait and anticipate my story! I think the wait was shorter this time, right? I will honestly say that the number of reviews I get is directly related to how long it takes me to get another chapter up. If I feel that people are not enjoying it, I tend to loaf and work on one of my other writing projects instead. That may be annoying, but I think it's human nature. Eek Crom is one of mine too! The real Cromwell was of course different, but I think they actually do a great job with his character on the show, and although James Frain doesn't look like him, he certainly fits the mold of what you would think of for Cromwell. LOL Anne/Cromwell children would be quick as a whip, mischievous, and a serious force to be reckoned with. I am glad you like my depiction of Jane – she is such a tough character to pin down. I mean, they all are, but the difference is that with Henry, Anne, Cromwell, there are multiple theories and lots of evidence for each that can be twisted enough to make convincing arguments concerning their motivations, fundamentals, beliefs, etc., but with Jane there is literally not enough to scrap together a legit picture of who she really was. I too think she was good at playing the game. I will disagree that she played it "better" than Anne. Anne held out for seven years, during which there were several points where it looked like she was just out of luck. Anne was a woman of great intelligence and self-control. While Jane was obviously smart and skilled at giving Henry what he wanted, there is no possibility in my opinion that she could have held it together for as long as Anne did. To study Anne is to realize that she was one of the most complex women you could imagine. No wonder they were all a little in love with her. For purposes of our story, Jane lets her brothers think they are in charge, which they are because they are guiding her, but she believes that once she is Henry's wife she will do better to take the best advice that comes to her. She has the benefit of watching two queens fall, and she can learn from both their mistakes. You know, I had not planned a Jane/Cromwell scene, but once you suggested that I was like, "of COURSE there should be a Jane/Cromwell scene!" That will be so much fun to write. It's coming up next chapter; see the preview at the end for an excerpt.

Le Creationist, you are welcome for updating! I hope you enjoy this chapter as well, which I think is rather interesting despite no Anne at all. Let me know what you think, please, and thank you so much for your continued readership!

28 April – Early Evening

i.

"Madge Shelton, you look lovely this evening."

She raised her eyebrows as though waiting for the punchline. "Thank you, sir."

His generous smile deepened and he held out a hand. "I should like a word with you, mistress."

Madge actually gulped. She took a step backward, watching as the other ladies vanished into the Great Hall, unaware that she had strayed back. "A word?" Her voice was small. "Of what sort?"

"I shan't hurt you, Madge." The hand, the open palm, hovered before her. "I merely require your opinions and memory to verify a few recent developments."

"The queen?"

His eyes held hers. "Yes."

"I wondered," Mage said timidly, "when it might come to this." Her hand was in his. When she faced him across the table, he saw anxiety, not terror. She would be easy to question: her emotions had not encased her, sealed her off from him, made her impenetrable.

Several times as he skirted and nipped at the issue of the queen's adultery, he felt Madge draw closer to him, catch herself, and pull back, retreating into stubbornness. He glanced at Riche, whose eyes said, _on with it, man, we've a long night ahead._

Madge continually settled and re-settled her hood as she mumbled, mussing her hair in the process. "Her Majesty preaches constantly the importance of chastity, honour, virtue…" Madge wrinkled her nose in thought. "I cannot imagine her to engage in any lewd behaviours."

Her honest gaze verily reached into his abdomen, clenching his stomach in fear. He could make himself believe Anne guilty. If she had made love to him, why not others? Why not men who adored her, fawned over her, tripped after her? The conviction that Anne was more complex and intelligent than that must be pushed aside in order to let him believe what he must not only believe for himself, but be able to prove. In order to plant it in the minds of others, to then draw it out, to make them clutch at their breast and say, _God, it is so, it has always been so, and I am a fool for failing to see it, how could I have been so blind?_, he must first believe it. He hardened his eyes at Madge, trying to picture Anne in her royal bed, naked and moist with sweat under some faceless courtier, trying to put the image into Madge's mind. He cleared his throat. "It surprises me that you suspect no ill conduct," he said slowly, "as your betrothal has all but expired under the strain of Henry Norris' affections for the queen."

Instantly it was clear that he had struck a nerve. "It – it has not expired," she stuttered, eyes wide with fear and embarrassment.

"Not yet," he agreed judiciously. "But it is choked, has it not? And your future husband spends many an hour loafing in the queen's apartments." Madge's chin quivered a little, and she blinked rapidly.

"Sir Henry respects and serves Her Majesty as we all do," she said tentatively.

"I am certain he does. But think what else he might do. Madge, come, I know you for a former mistress to the king." He settled back in the chair. "You are not an innocent bloom. You are not naïve to these matters. I ask you, consider Henry Norris a man, and consider what other end he could have been pursuing as he spent so much time in close proximity with the queen."

"He has had to do with her? You are sure?"

He hoped his face did not betray his relief that she was coming along. "No one can be more certain than the two of them, but Madge, what other explanation is there? You are a beautiful woman. What reason could Sir Henry have for allowing your betrothal to stall, other than a predisposition to a woman of great stature?"

"My sister thinks he prefers herself to me," Madge confessed, her voice verging on a whimper.

"Your sister is a fool," Cromwell said coolly. He achieved the desired effect: Madge glanced at him in surprise and pleasure. Sisterly rivalry was a delicate subject, and he saw at once that this, not the Henry Norris angle, would be his best card to play with her. He imagined this must have been the way that Anne felt when she was young, when her sister Mary was the more beautiful and desired. "Forgive me." He extended the apology as though he was afraid his insult to her sister had offended her. "She is a nice young woman, surely, and attractive, but she is mistaken in her idea that this will carry her through life. Your wit and grace dub you the superior sister. Do not let her make you feel differently."

"Thank you, Master Cromwell, I would not expect to hear that from you." She paused. "I often feel passed over."

Who would have thought? Madge Shelton, pouring out the details of her womanly woes to Master Secretary. "For your sister?"

"For Nan as well. The queen prefers her to all of us. If anyone knows anything secretive about the queen, it would be Nan," Madge mused. "Sometimes the feeling of being overlooked by those I love most – Mary, Sir Henry, Her Majesty – overwhelms me."

He nodded empathetically and folded his hands in a congenial gesture. "Not to worry, Madge. You have been neglected, but that shall soon come to an end. Let us talk about what we can do to improve your standing in the world. Master Riche, would you find us some wine and maybe a few cakes? I would not want Mistress Shelton to be deprived of her supper."

ii.

Ordinarily, Mary would roll her eyes and insist her sister get her own wine, but something in the way Madge swayed over the table made her acquiesce. She wondered if her sister had just had a conversation with Sir Henry Norris; Madge often fretted after speaking to her betrothed. She supposed some men might like that, to be so revered by their sweethearts that they often intimidated them into silence. The king certainly seemed to like his women that way, at least this month.

Mary excused her way through the crowd, looking this way and that for a floating tray of goblets. She caught up with a page and took two from the outer rim of the tray. "They are not both for me," she lectured when he gave her a skeptical look.

"That's right. One is for me." Thomas Cromwell appeared at her side, and before she knew it, Madge's wine was in his hand. He took a sip and nodded at the page, who turned away.

Licking her lips in annoyance, Mary tapped her foot beneath her skirts. "Master Secretary, I know you think yourself privileged, but that wine was for my sister. If you are going to wrest it from me, at least have the decency to replace it."

"You shall have to forgive me," he murmured after he drained the cup. "I could hardly refrain. Very thirsty, you see."

"And you are quenched now?" Mary wanted to turn away, but truthfully, this man fascinated her. She took the first sip of her wine glass as he handed his empty goblet off to a page without taking his eyes from her face.

He shook his head ruefully. "Not for years. But your beauty does help."

Mary choked on her wine as she spluttered with laughter. "Smooth romantic talk, sir? I think it is not your forte. Perhaps you had best stick to numbers and legislation and…" she waved a hand. "Whatever it is that you do."

"I should. But no one can do it alone." His hand was on her arm. "I require your assistance tonight, mistress."

Her feet carried her with him as he moved to the edge of the room, but unease festered in her chest. "Where are we going?"

"To my office, briefly, I need a word with you." She could have sworn that she felt his finger trail down her arm; was he propositioning her? Part of her wanted to throw the contents of her goblet into his face. But there was a part of her, the innermost part, the adventurous part, that wanted to know what this man of paramount secrecy and stealth wanted with her, why he had appeared next to her of all people. Quenched, she had asked. Not in years, he had said.

"My sister asked me to get wine for her…" she protested feebly as they hit the threshold to the Great Hall, looking over her shoulder.

Cromwell did not break stride. "Your sister will be fine. You do not strike me as someone who should be serving someone else."

They entered the gray stone room, and Mary hesitated. "What – you said we were going to your office."

"I have many offices, mistress, and I work from this one tonight. Sit."

"Master Riche?" she greeted Richard, confused.

"Mistress Shelton. Sit."

Her eyes flicked between their faces, betraying her nerves. She felt suddenly like a child, dependent and weak. She sat down, and Cromwell faced her.

"Mistress, I think you can appreciate brevity and candor. At least your reputation tells me so. I have asked you here to gain an understanding of what activities you have witnessed or suspected during your time in the queen's household."

"Activities?" Mary asked. She heard the scraping of a dry quill on parchment; Riche cursed, dipped the quill, and tried again.

"Yes. It has come to the attention of the king and myself that the queen may be engaging in inappropriate flirtations and relationships with various men."

"Queen Anne? You jest, surely. Everyone knows her devotion to the king." Puzzled, Mary drained her goblet.

"More wine for the lady," Cromwell called. A young, plainly-dressed man came forward and refilled the cup. "Mary. I appreciate not only your loyalty to the queen, but the fact that any illicit activity has been concealed from the queen's household quite well. I am not asking for your account of any debauchery in which the queen has engaged; only to describe to me any abnormal exchanges or circumstances, good or bad, with any man that you have ever seen in her rooms."

"You think she has been unfaithful?"

Cromwell spread his hands in the air as though to show they were free of gunpowder. "I think only what I must, given the information I have gleaned thus far. I need those closest to Her Majesty, namely the members of her household, to fill in the gaps."

It dawned on Mary. "You had my sister in here before me, didn't you? That is why she came to our table looking like death. And then she sent me…" Her mouth dropped open. "Sent me right into your hands. You planned to be there to take the wine. She knew I would not come back."

"Did you think I had come to flirt with you?" The corners of Cromwell's eyes crinkled as he smiled. "To woo you into bed? Not that…" he trailed off.

"Not that what?" Mary's cheeks flushed.

He changed tacks. "How old are you, Mary?"

"Call me Mistress Shelton. I am nineteen."

"You look a great deal like Her Majesty, has anyone ever told you that?"

She swallowed. "Yes. All the time. We are cousins, you know." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she berated herself. Of course he knew that.

"It surprises me that His Majesty has never expressed interest in you as a potential mistress," Cromwell mused, his gaze probing. He looked always at her, but did not stare. She broke eye contact over and over only to be drawn back in. She wondered if he had really run his hand down her arm, if that was part of his scheme, to lure her out of the banquet for this purpose. "Why do you think that is?"

"I could not say."

"D'you suppose it is because he prefers virgins?"

Mary's heart began to race, and in spite of herself, she began breathing deeply, the angry and uncomfortable heaving of her chest impossible to disguise in her tightly laced bodice. She narrowed her eyes. "You overreach yourself, Master Cromwell."

"It was an honest question, my lady."

"What would you have me say? I have seen nothing of questionable behaviour while serving the queen."

"D'you think a person's ill conduct is always visible? Is yours?"

"Are we discussing the queen's sexual life, or mine?" she shot back, seething. "Though I fail to see how either are any of your business."

He nodded, allowing the point. "Yours is not. The queen is a consort, and an anointed monarch at that. She is mother to the heir of the English throne. Her conduct is my business, as the king's personal secretary." He paused. "Do you enjoy sexual intercourse, Mistress Shelton?"

Her confident exterior burst apart at his bald question. This was dangerous talk. Cromwell could destroy her reputation and the careful glaze of courtly dignity that she had cultivated, ruining her prospects on the marriage market, with a cupped hand to a man's ear. She could slap herself for finding his enigmatic persona so interesting that she trusted him enough to walk a corridor with him. It was clear that the king wanted rid of her mistress, and with Cromwell on the task, there was no other way. She took a deep breath and relinquished responsibility for the cooperation she was about to offer up. She cleared her throat and took a sip of wine. "Yes."

"Can you understand why a person, deprived of sexual attention by her partner, might seek an alternate source?" Unbeknownst to Mary, Cromwell began sweating as he questioned her.

"Yes." Her voice was small.

"And given the sensitive nature of the matter, can you imagine what measures one might take in order to ensure such an affair be concealed?" She nodded. "One would never brag about it, nor discuss it. Only, say, in the deepest parts of one's mind." He gestured for wine himself, forcing his hand to steady. He felt strangled. He touched his throat; all was normal. His hand grazed over his gold chain of office and remembered slender fingers gripping it, twisting it.

"What are you trying to say, Master Cromwell?" Mary Shelton looked at him, miserable. The spicy personality that men referenced when discussing the youngest lady in waiting had evaporated, revealing the young girl beneath, only a girl, a girl who was all too eager to grow up.

He leaned forward. "The report of the queen's behaviour is that she has had sexual liaisons with a number of men, and concealed it so well for so long that much of the evidence may be lost. Our task is to reconstruct it with as much information as we can, derived from the accounts of those closest to her. You think well of your mistress. You admire her. I can see that. But she has deceived you, and deceived the king, and all of us. So, you must oblige me and dig deeply into your memory, and pull out any memories of her spoken references to or about men, anything that could have been misinterpreted."

"You want me to find some statement or comment that can be twisted to her disadvantage," Mary responded flatly. "That is the best you can truly hope for. Master Cromwell, you know the queen. She is virtuous, and loyal, and painfully aware of her position. Despite her appearance and charm, she is not a lascivious woman."

He could almost smell Anne's rosewater perfume. He remembered how fearful her face had been that day in January when she turned at his footstep behind her in the chapel, where she knelt praying for her husband's life, the weight of her belly visibly contorting her posture. He remembered her sunken eyes that day in her presence chamber, worrying about her reputation as The Great Whore. He remembered her fingers in his hair, under his collar, her legs twining around his waist. _Do you ever think about it?_

"It is not my place to describe the queen's character," he told Mary, "nor do I know her well enough to do so. My role is to gather all pertinent evidence about her ill behaviour."

"How do you know she has engaged in any?" Mary was genuinely curious. "What proof have you?"

Sensations of smooth skin that his fingertips could not forget. A racing heart whenever he glimpsed her profile. Trepidation every time he entered the king's presence; _does he know? Has he found out?_ His unprecedented scruples, even though he hated her, still, he told himself, even now. What proof did he have of her adultery besides the fear, guilt, and apparently mutual recollection? "I need no proof, Mary," he told her honestly, "for it is the nature of people. Women as well as men. Inside every beautiful woman lurks the mind of a whore. It is not just you."

His insult bounced off her. "You think her beautiful?" The corners of her mouth turned upward ever so slightly.

He did not miss a beat. "Were we not just comparing her appearance to yours, my lady? Now let us begin. You've a banquet to grace."

iii.

Bess stepped outside and took a deep breath; the hour was late, and the darkness of the sky was pure. She descended the short flight of stairs to her left, and waiting for her on the grass was a tall, dark figure. His chain of office caught the moonlight. "Mistress Dormer."

"Master Secretary." They skirted the corner of Greenwich and entered through a side door, moving quickly in the opposite direction from the banquet.

"I want to thank you," he told her as they entered the room, "for cooperating with me as you have. It is the right thing to do. The queen's sleeping posset was ordered by the king, who as we all know is the supreme authority in our realm."

"I love my mistress, but serve the king above all."

_Thank God for women like her._ "And His Majesty will reward your loyalty, my lady. I have not yet told him of your bravery in coming to my office to speak with me earlier this evening, but when he hears the details of your voluntary cooperation in our investigation, he will be most pleased. He loves those who love him." Other than Anne. "You are still single. Have you set your sights on a man?"

Bess flushed, a feminine glow spreading from her collarbones upward. "There is one that I fancy."

"When this is all over, come and see me. Tell me his name and we shall work out an agreement." They turned down a dark hallway, and Bess tightened her grip on his arm. She would be a good wife for most men, he thought. Prettily shaped, soft-spoken, and appropriately meek. Not his preference, but he felt comfortable promising her the man she desired.

"He is married already."

He waved a hand. "I feel certain we can uncover some impediment to the validity of his union. Archbishop Cranmer is adept at that sort of thing. The king will be happy to contribute to a jointure for a devoted servant such as yourself." _Either that, or he will find your manner so appealing that he casts Jane right off to marry you instead._

As soon as she sat down, Bess laced her fingers together on the table in front of her. "I wish to say that I love the queen and she has been a good mistress to me. I hope that this investigation comes to nothing, and ultimately that there is some error or misunderstanding, but I wish to help move the matter forward as I believe the conclusion is in the king's best interest."

"Master Riche, please note the lady's devotion to the royal couple and her desire that our investigation may result in an acquittal for Her Majesty."

There was a single stroke of quill on parchment. "Done."

"Thank you," Bess murmured.

"Of course, my lady." He stitched on gentle smile, prepared to become this lady's best friend. "Let us talk about all things, good and bad, that you have noticed in the queen's rooms. I wish to understand your experience with her. Start with a list of the men that visit most often, the ladies they seem to favour, and which of their presences has made you feel uneasy."

Within a half hour, he had what he needed from her, and wanting to keep their relationship amicable, Cromwell thanked her.

"Do you require any more wine, Mistress Dormer?"

"No, thank you, sir. Is that all?"

"Yes, it is. You are free to go."

She got to her feet and wrung her fingers through one another. "Would you please walk me back, sir? I fear the dark."

He rose and offered her his arm in a grant, chivalrous gesture. "Of course, my dear."

iv.

There was no fear on Elizabeth Seymour's face as she approached Cromwell. "I suppose it is my turn?" She fluttered her eyelashes at him, a lopsided smile on her face.

"Are you drunk, Mistress Seymour?"

She put a hand on his forearm. "For shame. Mistress Seymour is my sister. Please call me Lissie. And I would not say I am drunk. A bit unstable, perhaps." She looked around. "I thought you might want to talk to me. First just let me…" she plucked a glass of wine from the tray of the lone page that still circled the Hall.

"You knew I would wish to talk to you?" he asked her as they exited the Hall.

"Well, I did not _know_," Lissie emphasized, "but I suspected. I noticed that you were not about the king tonight, and all night, we were missing one lady. The king has my sister on the throne beside him. The logic is not difficult."

"A clever woman you are."

Lissie finished her wine. "Finished. Pity there are no pages about."

He took the cup from her. "I'll hold it. Almost there." In the room, he shot Riche a look that said, _this will be easy._ Lissie settled into her chair, taking deep breaths of the chilly air. She seemed clear enough to question. After Cromwell's obligatory speech about the concern over the queen's conduct, she looked at him blankly.

"And what is it that you want from me?"

He paused. He had not expected this. "As Jane's sister, I think you understand the necessity of careful and thorough investigation into this matter regarding Her Majesty. If there is any information you have that would further our understanding…"

"You want me to offer testimony that the queen has engaged in, at the very least, questionable conversation with members of the court. With enough of that sort of evidence, you will be able to build a case for her lack of suitability to continue as queen consort. Yes?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Then I am afraid I cannot help you," she said flatly.

Confused, he pulled his head back from her, inspecting her eyes. She seemed clear and coldly sober. Forgetting himself for a moment, he looked over at Richard, who also wore an expression of incredulity. "I beg your pardon, Mistress Seymour?"

"Call me Lissie. I will say nothing against her," Lissie shrugged.

Cromwell cocked his head to one side. "You do not want to see your sister on the throne?"

"It has nothing to do with my sister, and everything to do with the fact that I have nothing to say against Queen Anne."

"None of us wish to make up stories about her," Cromwell said patiently. "We simply want to be aware of her activities and loyalties."

Lissie actually looked annoyed with him. "Her conduct in my line of vision is without fault. I will not be swayed into saying something accusatory. Perhaps it would be best to leave me, as Jane's sister, out of this entirely."

He smirked. "Ah, but as I recall, you were given ample opportunity to leave the queen's service altogether. You cannot pick and choose which responsibilities you'd like as a member of her household."

She nodded in understanding. "But," she held up one index finger, "what about when Jane is queen? Will you not need someone to pass information to and from her?" Her smirk mirrored his own. "I feel certain you do not wish to rely upon my brothers."

"And why would I rely upon you, when you will not even cooperate now?"

"My survival, as attached to my family, would depend on it then."

His eyes flashed with genuine interest. He realized that the room was silent save for their voices. Riche was not writing. This was fascinating and not at all what they had expected. He settled into his chair. "You do not think your survival depends on this interview?"

"Not really. I can hardly imagine you beating me to death. At this point, my brothers would do worse than you. I endure it. They think they have control now, and you let them think that, but I imagine when my sister is crowned that much of that pretense will fly the chamber. They will no longer be in control of our survival; you will. It seems the wiser loyalty to cultivate."

He looked at her unassuming face, a few freckles here and there. She looked like any pretty lady of the court. Who would have thought she possessed abilities of reckoning on par with himself? "What did you think I would ask you here to discuss?"

"I was not sure," she admitted, "but I knew it would happen. I do not mean to polish your chain, Master Secretary, but I can hardly imagine a heap without you on top of it, much less a woman like the queen to be toppled without your hand giving the ultimate shove." Riche chuckled. "I do not mean to offend," Lissie added quickly.

"No, no," Cromwell waved her off. He rubbed his forehead for a moment, trying to process what had just happened. He had expected this interview would go the best of any of them. The others had cooperated enough to give him what he needed, but the shock of Lissie's conviction had not worn off, and in truth, Jane's sister's intense support of Anne gnawed at him. She should be helping them plot Anne's downfall, not protecting the falling queen. Her loyalty to the queen spoke volumes. He wondered what separated Lissie from the rest, although the answer just from this short interview seemed to be her acuteness of mind. He cleared his throat. "So there is no circumstance under which you would be convinced to speak against the queen."

"If you put me to the rack or whatever other device you use," Lissie said lightly, "I would probably say whatever you asked of me. Mind you, I mean not to interfere. Long have I been aware that this was coming. I simply do not wish to be part of it."

"Well," Cromwell sighed, exhausted and defeated, and aware he yet had the most important interview to make, "I suppose we are done here. I will escort you back to your room."

"Good evening, Master Riche," Lissie said lightly as she passed him, the quill lifeless on his desk.

"Evening, Lissie."

In the hallway, Lissie placed her hand on Cromwell's arm. "There are," she said in a low voice, "men who admire her. Things I could tell you about them."

"Why torment me?"

"I do not mean to torment." She stopped them. "Master Cromwell, I am two years a widow. I do not wish to be one any longer."

"You want a husband?"

"I want a man," she murmured in the dark, correcting him. "Not just a husband. My first husband was too old to have much concern for me, although he thought my face very pretty, so he said. I want to be married to a man, and be his true wife."

"I am sure that once your sister is queen-"

"Edward will secure a match with some miserable Frenchman or sell me to pay off a debt, or keep someone quiet about his first wife's interludes with our father." Desperation tinged her voice, allowing her to say in the near pitch blackness what she could not muster the courage to say in the broad daylight, not even in the dim interrogation room. "Even if I am married to someone who is a political ally, what will happen if Jane's star fades? Pray God it does not, but I know better than to trust in the eternal security of being the king's wife."

Cromwell was taken aback. "Mistress Seymour – Lissie – your sister is not even on the throne yet, and you are making provisions for when she comes off it?"

"Look at the Boleyns," she hissed, a harsh whisper. She leaned closer to him, the shape of her head twitching to and fro as if she feared Tudor guards would surround her for speaking thus. "Look at Jane Rochford; even the Howards. Norfolk, the Duke of _Norfolk_ will be damaged, his position will be compromised because of this. What chance would my own family have of withstanding a similar fate? Master Cromwell, I want to find a husband to keep me safe. Someone whose wagon is not hitched to Jane's belly. God save her."

"And in return, you would provide me with…"

"No testimony against Anne herself. I will not lie. But I will tell you the men that trip after her, that you can investigate their conduct, and I will write a statement and sign it myself so that the world and the king and the queen can see that I would not impugn her honour."

Cromwell nodded, understanding the terms of the trade. It was a good one. It seemed he was bartering husbands for cooperation tonight; who knew the ladies in waiting were so man-hungry? "I see. Well, Lissie, I fear I cannot bring a wedding to pass before we are rid of Anne, but a legalized betrothal could be done within the day, if all parties are present. You could sign your statement after the documents are signed. Would that suit you?"

"Yes," Lissie breathed.

"I think we can come to an agreement here. Have you considered a specific man for the honour of being your new husband?"

There was a long pause. "Master Secretary, as I said, I wish to be the wife of a man whose fortune is his own, not one who depends upon others."

"Of course, I understand that." It was a wise preference, really, although most of the eligible men that fit that description were long married or not at court, which would throw an obstacle in their path.

"And as I also said, I cannot imagine a heap without you being on top of it." It took a few moments for her meaning to sink in, and Cromwell could not think what to say. Lissie continued: "You have been a widower nearly a decade, I think. Perhaps you might be interested in a new wife," she plucked up the courage to continue, "a wife who will ask nothing of your dealings and not demand your undivided love and affection, but would desire an amicable union and be waiting to warm you when you return to your bed each night."

Finally, he found his words. "Mistress Seymour-"

"Lissie."

"Lissie, are you propositioning me?"

"I suppose so," she mused, "for I cannot see any flaw in the plan. I would be a useful link to Jane, and if you would like more children, I would be happy to bear them. My brothers would say nothing against a marriage to you, for they would see their advantage in it, erroneously of course. They would think it an insurance policy for their own necks."

"I am not interested in remarriage," Cromwell tried to say, but Lissie tumbled on.

"This would not be a marriage in the romantic sense; I do not expect you to joust under my colours and use my love-knot embroidered handkerchiefs. We could be a great convenient match." She stepped closer to him, and he was too stunned and, frankly, confused to remove her. "I find you interesting, Master Cromwell, and I think you might find me entertaining. I do not need an elaborate wedding ceremony; leave that to Henry and Jane. The betrothal could be written up tomorrow morning, if you get Archbishop Cranmer on it after breakfast, and no one would need to know if you wish to keep it a secret." Her body pressed against his. "You could take me to bed tomorrow night, and the consummation would seal the betrothal."

"Lissie," he went rigid against the touch of her soft curves, but did not push her away. The heat of her body was a physical sensation that was not entirely unwelcome. "I am not interested in marrying again. I cannot do that."

"I think you would like it," she persisted, although her voice wavered. "I think you would like being married to me. I think – think of it, Master Cromwell, I could be in your bed within the day. My maidenhead could be yours by this time tomorrow." She paused, her bold words clearly surprising her. "Daily, if you want. More than once. As often as you could want. When was the last time you had a woman, Master Cromwell?" Then her mouth was on his, her palms flat against his chest as she rose on tiptoes to kiss him. It was so unexpected, and so sweet and pleasant, that Cromwell melted against her, his hands tentatively finding her waist. A stray silky curl fell against his cheek as she pushed her tongue inside his mouth, a sensation that haunted his dreams. He was lost in physical awareness, the feeling of her fingers as they slid up his chest, over his shoulders, and along his neck, entrancing him. His arms went around her back and he crushed her against him, lifting her off her feet and backing her to the wall against which he had been standing. His mind screamed at him, but the heat of her body, the sweetness of her lips, and the allure of the picture she had just painted for him were enough to override reason.

Then her fingers found their way into his hair, not to his thinking muscles, but into the thick curls of his crown, and the reality of what he was doing broke over his head like a wave. Those were not the right hands. There were no right hands. He had no use for anyone to warm his bed other than Mrs. Lockton, who would warm the coverlets by the fire for him. He did not want tousled coppery blonde locks on his chest every morning. He did not want to take a virgin to bed. He did not want indifferent companionship, nor freckles, nor brown eyes. And most of all, he could not take on the responsibility of protecting anyone when he was coming alarmingly to find that he could not protect himself from the simplest of emotions. The simplest of sensations. The simplest of memories. _When was the last time you had a woman, Master Cromwell?_

He pulled back from Lissie gently, careful not to push her. This was not her fault, the poor child, and she was beautiful. He would never admit it – not that he would ever admit that any of this had happened, to anyone – but after he retreated an arm's length, he brought his head back to hers and kissed her again, softly, deeply, like it meant something. He wanted to feel human connection, savour it, and he memorized the feeling of her chest rising against his, the pleasure in her eagerness.

"Lissie, forgive me."

"Forgive you, Master Cromwell?" Lissie was panting, a breathy, succulent sound. She was so young.

"I should not have done that." He put one hand on her shoulder to keep himself away from her. She was a little intoxicating, he would admit: her intelligence, her eloquence, her spirit, her almost masculine method of reasoning and stubbornness. She reminded him of… he closed his eyes, turned away from that thought. But perhaps that was why she was so loyal to her mistress.

"I enjoyed it," Lissie commented with a little shrug.

Cromwell chuckled, dispelling the tension. "And I as well. But I cannot marry you. There are thousands of reasons why, the main ones being that a man like me deserves no woman like you."

"Who deserves anyone, in this court?" she asked blandly.

He smiled in the dark. "You are wise beyond your years, and will make a wonderful wife. If there be any other young man you wish to have, please, come to me at once and I will do all I can for you."

"I want you," she insisted.

"Believe me, you do not." His tone was firm. "I do not desire a wife, and with the state of my life now, I should not have one. You deserve a better life than I could give you."

"Say what you will, but I think that you would like me too."

"You are not incorrect, but that is not the issue. Come, I need to walk you back. I think we've dallied enough," he needled her, wiping her saliva from his lips. Under cover of darkness, he licked it off his fingertips. "Think on it. Draw up a list. Come see me and we can sit down and discuss them."

"Or lie down and discuss them," she shot back.

"God, Lissie, you are going to make me blush. No more of that talk." They strolled in amiable silence until they neared her bedchamber. "If you find you wish to stay single awhile longer, I can help suffocate any matches your brothers may attempt to create for you. All you must do is ask."

"So you will protect me, but not marry me? I fear I do not understand."

He smiled. "Believe it or not, even I place a value on friendship. Not that we are going to play chess together, but I see no harm in a friendly relationship. And it is best this way."

They stopped in front of her door, the corridor deserted. Lissie looked around, then up at him, and he saw that her eyes were shy. "What if he grows tired of her? Casts her off?"

"I will help you, Lissie, no matter what. Always know that you have a friend in me. A subtle friend, but a friend no less."

She nodded. "Thank you, Master Secretary." One hand went to the doorknob. "And I apologize for… attacking you."

"No need, my lady. It was the high point of my evening." He winked and turned away, running both hands over his face as he rounded the corner. A glance out a window told him that the hour was halfway between midnight and dawn. Not that it mattered. He had one final task, one more person to see, and he knew where he could find her.

Anne's apartments were silent, but as he expected, candles flickered in her bedchamber. He found that after such a night, he could not be bothered to care much about appearances. He stopped cold when he entered the room, half hoping to catch Anne in bed with a man so he could convince himself that what he was doing was right. She looked like a painting, or a sculpture, or some other masterpiece. He could still taste Lissie's wine in his mouth when a throat cleared behind him, startling him. It was Mistress Saville, of course.

"How is the queen?"

"She is living."

He went through the motions, trying to make himself appear less frustrated and miserable than he felt, trying to force himself to believe what he hoped to make her believe, to tell him. She loved her queen perhaps more than any of the other ladies, but somehow, he sensed that it would not be hard to pry from Nan Saville the information about men who also loved Anne. He would be delicate with her. He did not want to ruin this child. She was, after all, barely more than a child.

"No harm will come to her?" Nan mewed as they walked out of Anne's room, leaving her alone in her great bed. Cromwell had been arm in arm with five ladies tonight, and lip to lip with one.

"I have no desire to do the queen harm. You said it yourself. She is well."

In the gray room, Riche had fallen asleep on his desk. "What is the hour-?" he asked, sitting up with a start.

"I've hardly any idea either," Cromwell commiserated. "Last one, Richie. I'll make it quick. Boy, bring us some candles. Mistress Saville, are you cold?"

v.

"You are sure you're all right?" Wyatt cocked his head at her. She rolled her eyes in return as he unlocked the door to his bedchamber.

"I am fine, would you please stop asking?" Mary leaned her entire weight against the door to force it open.

He raised his eyebrows. "Surely, my lady. You just seem preoccupied."

She unpinned her French hood and tossed it at him. It hit him square in the chest, the veil floating gracefully after it, before falling to the floor. "I am unoccupied currently," Mary teased, "and I would like to have you change that." She tugged the virginal partlet out from under her dress and dropped it, then began unlacing her bodice.

Unbuttoning his jacket, Wyatt made conversation. "Did you enjoy the banquet? I did not see you much on the dance floor."

"I did," Mary nodded distractedly, "but not as much as I had hoped. There was some difficulty with the other ladies tonight." Bodice and underskirts swished to the floor, and Mary was left in her corset and underskirts. She stepped out of her high heeled shoes.

"What sort of trouble?" Wyatt loosened his collar and tugged it over his head, then began peeling off his hose.

She made a dismissive motion with one hand while the other loosened her laces and untied the bow on her underskirts. "Jane sat with the king, but we had to sit at our usual table. It made us uncomfortable."

Wyatt nodded. "That makes sense. D'you need help?" Just as he asked, Mary slid out of her undergarments and faced him. He made a move to reach for her, but she twisted away and doused the lights.

"Take me to bed," she murmured as she made her way toward him.

"I planned to," he replied dryly. Mary folded her naked body against his, snaking her arms around his middle and resting her cheek against his chest. "Mary? Are you sure there is nothing troubling you?"

She sighed and righted herself, pressing her mouth to his in the first kiss of the evening. "Yes. I am well, my lord. Make love to me. Do not ask me questions."

29 April 1536

The Following Afternoon

(after the scene from last chapter)

"Sir Thomas!" Anne chimed, surging against him like a wave upon the shore. He smelled her sun-drenched hair for a moment, just a moment, thank Jesus.

"Majesty," he made an attempt to bow, hoping she did not catch his scent as well, for he smelt of unadulterated adultery, the heady perfume of Mary Shelton's sex still palpable on his skin and in his hair. "How fare you?"

Her eyes danced. "I am mortal, Tom, and we've got to do something about it."

As usual, he was lost already. "Mortal, madam?"

"Yes!" She tapped her index finger on his ear. "Mortal, human, I shan't live forever. I am no goddess."

Though he thought her every bit a goddess, Wyatt managed to cock his head earnestly. "My lady, I am afraid I cannot follow your meaning."

She pulled herself against him again, weaving her arm through his, shoulder to shoulder as they strolled down the gallery floor in the opposite direction that he had meant to go. "Poetry, Tom, I've realized that I wish to be immortalized in poetry. I pray for a writer with talents such as yours to pen my legacy." She smirked up at him. "And not as the fire that burnt you or the hind that teased you. I wish others to know my merits, and I sense that I will not be able to demonstrate them before…"

"Before?"

"Well. I think you can do it best," she amended, backing out of a prophesy that she knew better than to make. She spun in front of him now, clasping both his hands in hers. "You know me best, you respect me, Tom, I know you would never desecrate me or my image, or my queenship. I know the friendly love that you and I bear for one another."

"Yes," Wyatt breathed, stopping her before he sickened all over her. It was too much, this testimony of his purity of intention and emotion toward her, as though he had not ravaged the woman at court who looked most like her last night, mouthed "Anne" over and over while in the act, awoken this morning with a raven mane on his chest and silently renounced God when he realized that, again, it was not her hair. "Yes. What would you have me do?"

She leaned her face toward his, her eyes mesmerizing. "Write about me," she whispered. "Promise me."

"Yes," he whispered back.

Anne held his gaze for a long moment, drinking him in, and then stepped back and began to laugh, a relieved laugh. "Ah, Master Wyatt. I thank you from the depths of my soul. I shall truly need that… after." She made a little fluttering motion with one hand, shrugged, and spun to walk away. Her ruby gown swirled after her, swishing in her wake as if apologizing to him and taunting him at the same time. That was Anne. Glorify me, but don't touch me. My legacy, my name, it's yours, but not my thighs. No wonder he had so much to say about her.

**UP NEXT:**

Jane gave a soft, ladylike giggle. He wondered if she had practiced that. It seemed calculated. "You think there is no chance it does not come to pass?"

He thought. "I would never rule anything out, madam, but I cannot imagine the circumstances under which it would fail. I can imagine that waiting must induce anxiety, but let me assure you, the king is ardent in his desire, and what he wants, he shall have."

She pursed her lips and nodded. "I…" she cleared her throat, slid forward to rest on the edge of her chair as if to close the space between them. "Master Cromwell, although I love and desire His Majesty, I have a functioning set of eyes and a clear memory. I have seen him tire of more than one woman. I fear I will not be able to hold him. I am here today to ask you if there is any advice you can give me about how best to please him, how best to keep his love, if I am to be his wife."

Cromwell put down his quill. "You do not trust your instincts?"

"Other than obedience," Jane shook her head, "I truly have no instincts. I sense that sweetness is not enough. If a woman as interesting as Anne could not always keep his attention, I stand no chance. I may be quiet, but I am no fool, and I realize the paths of those before me."

"I am not sure I am qualified to dispense advice on wifehood…"

"Marriage to His Majesty seems as much politics and strategy as wifehood," Jane whispered. "You succeed at the former two; if you will tell me how, and I can mix it with acquiescence and adoration, I think I can manage. Cromwell, you are a political advisor and I suspect I will be your next queen. Let us think of this as our first project together." She slid a ring with a flat sapphire from her thumb and placed it on his desk. "A token of my loyalty to you. Your assistance in my cause has not gone unnoticed, nor will it ever. Please. I need your help."


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: Good evening all! Here's a new chapter, shorter because I'm shuffling things around as this story unfolds a lot differently than I envisioned it when I sat down to plan it out 2.5 years ago. Although it's a bit briefer than usual, I hope it at least serves to titillate and make you want the next installment =)**

**I had planned to stick pretty closely to the trajectory of the show, but if you all haven't noticed, I have failed at that in a major way lately. We are around the time of the scene where Anne is having a dance practice with her ladies and George comes to tell her that Mark Smeaton is arrested and their trip to France is cancelled, but that sort of scene does not work at all with the path I've got Anne taking, and it just seemed jarring to write it that way, so I have re-worked the order to reflect the historical timeline a little better.**

**Speaking of timelines, I am realizing how confusing this one has gotten since I decided to be "creative." We have basically flip-flopped between days for the past few chapters, so I am going to run down when these past several scenes have occurred. After this, no more messing with chronology, I promise. That was a fun experiment, but no dice.**

**Where we are: Cromwell gives Anne the sleeping posset (chapter 21); she falls asleep (chapter 22); Jane and Lissie chit-chat as they get ready for the banquet (chapter 22); the banquet ensues (chapter 22); Cromwell interrogates the ladies (chapter 23, although we see the beginning of Nan Saville's from her POV in chapter 22); Mary Shelton goes to bed with Thomas Wyatt (chapter 23); after Anne awakens the next morning, she and Cromwell have their conversation in the garden (chapter 22); Anne runs into Thomas Wyatt and has another of her strange episodes (chapter 23); and now presumably she's gone back up to her rooms. Our opening scene in this chapter takes place after all that, and from here onward, we are going in a straight line. Thank you for bearing with me!**

**Readers, please review! I feel so encouraged when I get reviews. =)**

**Rae, I hope you do enjoy the Jane Seymour/Cromwell scene we have here. It's short as the dynamic is not developed enough for much depth, but I like how it turned out. Let me know if you do too!**

**Allyson, thank you so much for your reviews, constructive criticism, and support. I cannot tell you how grateful I am, and I hope to read more of your comments!**

29 April 1536

Afternoon

"A visitor for you, sir," Riche's bloodshot eyes looked bewildered.

"Are you my chamberlain now, Richard?" Cromwell rubbed at his own eyes. His stomach felt like a bucket of raw nerves, churning and ricocheting off one another. He needed sleep. He needed a bath.

Riche all but tiptoed across the room. "It's Mistress Seymour," he whispered.

_Has she come up with a new suitor already?_ He shrugged. "Let her in."

"She is here without her brothers; is that wise?" Riche looked genuinely concerned, and Cromwell realized he was talking about Jane, not Lissie. He waved Riche toward the door, and a moment later Jane glided in, her steps tentative. She smiled at him uncertainly.

"Master Secretary."

He grinned. "Mistress Seymour. I was not expecting you; is all well?"

"Oh, yes," she sat down in the chair opposite his desk. "I… I wanted an audience with you before matters go any further and I lose the ability to move freely." Jane paused and glanced around. "You did not rise to greet me. In my family, everyone rises to greet me as if I am queen already. I find it tiresome," she admitted.

"My lady, you will never have to worry about that with me," he assured her. "If it would please you, I will hold my seat even when you sweep in here in a crown."

Jane gave a soft, ladylike giggle. He wondered if she had practiced that. It seemed calculated. "You think there is no chance it does not come to pass?"

He thought. "I would never rule anything out, madam, but I cannot imagine the circumstances under which it would fail. I can imagine that waiting must induce anxiety, but let me assure you, the king is ardent in his desire, and what he wants, he shall have."

She pursed her lips and nodded. "I…" she cleared her throat, slid forward to rest on the edge of her chair as if to close the space between them. "Master Cromwell, although I love and desire His Majesty, I have a functioning set of eyes and a clear memory. I have seen him tire of more than one woman. I fear I will not be able to hold him. I am here today to ask you if there is any advice you can give me about how best to please him, how best to keep his love, if I am to be his wife."

Cromwell put down his quill. "You do not trust your instincts?"

"Other than obedience," Jane shook her head, "I truly have no instincts. I sense that sweetness is not enough. If a woman as interesting as Anne could not always keep his attention, I stand no chance. I may be quiet, but I am no fool, and I realize the paths of those before me."

"I am not sure I am qualified to dispense advice on wifehood…"

"Marriage to His Majesty seems as much politics and strategy as wifehood," Jane whispered. "You succeed at the former two; if you will tell me how, and I can mix it with acquiescence and adoration, I think I can manage. Cromwell, you are a political advisor and I suspect I will be your next queen. Let us think of this as our first project together." She slid a ring with a flat sapphire from her thumb and placed it on his desk. "A token of my loyalty to you. Your assistance in my cause has not gone unnoticed, nor will it ever. Please. I need help."

He looked from her to the ring, and back up to her. His hand hovered over the sapphire before closing over it, entrapping it. The blue disappeared from sight. "There is only so much that even I can advise. You must understand. There is no correct answer. It is not an arithmetic problem."

"I never excelled at arithmetic anyway," Jane said lightly.

"Make yourself amenable to his every whim, unless you sense that he wants you to play the opposition in conversation."

"How will I know that?"

"It is a sense that you will develop over time. To be frank with you, the occasions will be few. Even with his present wife, whose intellect and wit was what drew him to her to start with, he has only a limited tolerance for constructive argument." Cromwell paused and looked at Jane. "You strike me as a woman tending toward submission anyway."

Jane's eyelashes fluttered down over her eyes. He saw how different she was from her sister. "Is that not the divinely intended nature of womanhood?"

He smiled. "Good. Just throw out lines like that all the time, and you will be fine."

She slid forward even further on the chair, almost coming off it. "Are there any other ways I can please him?"

_God help her. She is afraid, and she barely knows the half of it._ "Mistress Seymour, I can only tell you that I pledge my support to the success of your marriage and am here to help you in any way that I can. I must admit that I have difficulty giving a woman love advice. I am not sure what to say."

She nodded. "I understand, and I thank you for your assistance already. Please know I am ready to do your bidding. I am your advocate should you ever need me to be."

He wondered if she realized how ridiculous an overstatement that was. Jane on her best day could not hope to rival the political and personal influence Anne had embodied on her worst day. Even now, Anne had more pull than Jane could ever hope to, merely by virtue of her persona. A flick of Anne's eyes was more powerful than the most powerful argument of Jane Seymour. Nonetheless, he nodded. "And I you, my lady. I would give you a ring, but alas… I think your fingers should remain virginal until the king's jewelry graces them."

A slight pleasured flush coloured Jane's cheeks as she spread her bare fingers and looked down at them. "Yes, my lord."

"Have you any other matters of discussion for me today?" He looked into her sweet eyes, not empty, not ignorant. There was a quality to her that he could not place, and that did not please him. She was either much more vacant or much smarter than anyone supposed. He waited for her to ask what would happen to Anne, how they would get rid of her, the amount of bloodshed it would cost England so her fingers could be deflowered.

He could not read her eyes. "No, Master Cromwell," she said, rising as her fingers clasped together in a portrait of maidenly meekness. "That will be all for today."

Anne dangled the sprig above her face and plucked two grapes from its near-bare skeleton. Her hands had been rubbed with a perfumed cream, apparently made from crushed pearls or the like, to help soothe the cracked skin from her gloveless horseback ride the previous afternoon. Her feet were propped on a plump tasseled pillow at the head of her bed, while her torso, wrapped in yet another new gown – this one ice blue – was poured over a cluster of decorative throw pillows the bottom of the bed. Her loose hair spilled over the edge of the bed and dangled toward the floor like a frozen waterfall.

"Is the chicken nearly ready?" Anne yelled.

Bess Dormer poked her head around the door. "The cook said a quarter hour more, Majesty."

"I can't wait," she warned. "Find me something else. I am starving."

Madge and Bess exchanged worried glances in the presence chamber. Anne had come back from her walk in the gardens laughing, decided to change gowns, and announced herself in need of food. Since then she had eaten apple slices, grapes, sweetmeats, and tarts. She had ordered a loaf of warm bread and a carved chicken next, and declared herself content to lie about and enjoy her life.

Nan Saville had not appeared yet today. Anne, who normally could not manage without her, had not even acknowledged her absence. She held all her ladies at a distance. They shrank from her anyway, and she suspected she was right and they had turned against her. Their guilty expressions said it all. All afternoon, they had been quiet as a winter's night.

That suited Anne perfectly. When her chicken finally arrived, she sat cross-legged on her bed without so much as a book to occupy her mind and placed the platter in front of her. She wondered if her ladies were hungry, but on second thought, she wasn't sure she cared. She tore at the flesh of the chicken, rolling the strips in chunks of warm bread, and devoured it. She ate long past the point of satisfaction, past the point of comfort. She wanted to experience a full belly, to memorize the sensations.

When she ran her hand over her middle and felt an unattractive bump, she pushed the platter away and flopped onto her back. Her face scrunched up in discomfort. So this was how it felt.

"I fancy some lighter colours," Anne instructed the royal seamstress a few hours later, in between sips of wine. "Try and find me some warmer shades. I had heard the king of France was sending over some rare pink satin; has it arrived yet?" She drained her cup, which was her fourth, and dropped it on the floor as she sank deeper into her bathtub.

"It has, madam, but I do not have it available."

Anne let out a shiver. "More hot water," she called. She raised an eyebrow at the seamstress. "Gave it to Mistress Seymour, eh? Bring it here. Let me see it."

The seamstress flinched. "It has already been cut, Your Majesty."

Nan kept her face toward the ground as she entered the room. "Majesty, I am so sorry, I-"

"Glad you could join us, Mistress Saville," Anne cut her off. "Brush my hair."

The younger lady bobbed a curtsy and snatched the comb. "Yes, my lady."

Anne turned her icy gaze back on the seamstress. "I care not if it's cut already. Bring it."

"Yes, madam."

"I am more slender than Mistress Seymour, I think," Anne mused as Nan slid the comb through the ends of her hair. "Should not be a difficulty to create a garment for me from the cuts you've made for her."

"You are, yes, my lady; and no, it would not."

"Hot water!" Anne barked.

Midnight or just after

There were footsteps in the corridor outside his office – well, not footsteps so much as swishing. The sounds rustled and melded together like a child's footsteps would. But there were no children. There were certainly no children.

He glanced outside to make sure he had not lost track of the hour or fallen asleep. But no, it was certainly the middle of the night. The footsteps were too light to be a man. No punctuating click of a high heel; it was not Mrs. Lockton. With an igniting bloom of nerves, he realized who his visitor was. Who it had to be.

She did not knock. Actually, she pushed open the door and closed it behind her, leaning against it. Only after a few moments did she acknowledge his presence at all.

"Master Cromwell."

"Your Majesty."

She stayed planted against the door, her hair plaited delicately into a single thick braid that fell over one shoulder. Her mouth twisted as she chewed on the inside of her mouth. She appeared to be waiting for him to speak. He cleared his throat.

"May I help you?"

Anne swallowed and straightened up. She came forward a few steps, her heavy black robe dragging on the floor behind her. "I am afraid," she murmured, sounding like a little girl.

Cromwell swallowed, too, and pushed back his chair. He was on his feet in a moment and he circled his desk, passing her. "You should not be here."

"I know," she replied helplessly as she watched him brush past her. He turned the bolt on his door. Locked them in. "D'you think I may have been followed? I feared I was being followed…"

He stopped before her, barely restraining himself from reaching for her, from shaking her shoulders. Frustration and fear and unease filled him. "Then why would you come here?" he demanded. "What are you thinking? First in the garden, and now," he flapped his hands in the air like a bird taking flight, "in my rooms in the middle of the night?"

Eyes downcast, Anne shook her head. "I'm sorry," she whispered. He saw that he was too sharp. He tried to soften himself.

"Why are you here?"

"I knew not what else to do." She turned away, began to pace. "My ladies… they were my one solace, my one respite. They loved me, and I them. I could sense their love for me. They will not even look at me today." Her shoulders drew upward and scrunched together underneath her robe. He watched her as she advanced toward the alcove where he could spy the window of her bedchamber. Coated in the moonlight that spilled through the glass, she looked like a celestial creature, more vapor than woman. He found himself thinking of her bare shoulder blades, that day when he had come to search her rooms and found her at her needlepoint, before she turned her mirror on him and left him alone to ransack her belongings. She babbled on: "At least, before, at least I had them. I am not a fool, I knew…" Anne sniffled, brought one small hand to her cheek. "I am not a fool. I knew Henry would not stand to be saddled with a wife that did not please him. For all the brashness, Cromwell. I am not a fool. I saw the path before me. That was why I fought so, when Henry, with Henry's other women. I thought to myself that she, that Catherine, had tolerated it, and look where his indulgences led him. It seemed that the opposite reaction would bring the opposite effect."

She had turned and was making her way back to him. The corners of her mouth twitched upward, and she began to laugh. Both hands came up to cover her grin.

"I… it's funny somehow," she giggled. "D'you know what I did today, Master Cromwell? Most usually I spend my days in prayer, at my embroidery or in my books, or working on whatever task consumes me at the moment. Today, I sat on my bed and ate. I ate things I did not want, and far more than I needed. Then I lay on my back and hardly moved. For hours. I was thinking that I wanted to experience gluttony once in my life. This morning, when I awoke, while I was walking alone in the garden, I started to think of what sins I have committed, having thought myself a virtuous woman overall, and… well, pride, envy, wrath, greed, lust," she flinched at this one, "it appears that I am considerably more given to sinful behaviour than I had thought. So I thought to myself, sloth, gluttony, the only two left – I wonder what those are like. And I said to my ladies, bring me cakes. Bring me tarts. Bring me bread. And so, I became a gluttonous queen. A slothful, gluttonous queen." She tried to conceal her laughter, pressing her lips together the way a child does when she cannot deliver a joke without laughing prematurely.

"You are not well," Cromwell replied. When she stepped forward, he stepped back. She looked serpentine, her eyes clear and bright in the dimness of his office. Her braid slithered around her neck and fell almost to her waist. She was a Medusa, a beautiful, entrapping Medusa brought to life. He could not remember the last time he felt fear like this.

"Who is? You should see the expressions my ladies wore today. I half expected Madge to strangle herself with her stockings before supper." She chuckled and wiggled her eyebrows at him. "Nice work, Cromwell."

He almost said, _I know not of what you speak, Majesty,_ but there was no point. "I had no choice."

"God alone can judge that," Anne shot back lightly, still grinning, shaking her head. "So what's it to be, then, Cromwell?" Before he could answer: "Did you ever work as a sailor?"

The question caught him off guard enough to get an honest answer. "No, not really. Why?"

"I was just thinking that sailors are usually so good at tying neat little knots," Anne mused, twirling the end of her braid around one finger. Her tone teased him, caressed him like a lover's palm. "I wonder how you plan to dispose of me, to tie that knot without getting your finger caught in the strands." She advanced another step, and then another, as he backed away. Their steps were even, almost like they were practicing the saltarello. "How do you plan to bundle me off? Accuse me of adultery with yourself?"

"Stop it," he growled.

"Tell me," Anne persisted, her voice trembling. Her eyes filled with tears. "I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of you," she whispered. "Of aloneness. Of disgrace. Of death. Of the unknown."

Cromwell let his breath out, gratification and guilt and intrigue crippling him. "Of me?" He remembered her in the garden earlier that afternoon; _I wish you had put a knife between my ribs and that was that._ "You've no need to fear me, Your Majesty. I would not harm you."

Anne bowed her head, fingers clinging to the end of her braid now, as a man might grasp at cattails while drowning in a pond. Her chest rose and fell. "But you will," she whispered, and sniffled.

"Your Majesty…" he trailed off, at a loss.

"You will," Anne implored, as tears spilled down both cheeks. "Who else could do it, who else could manage it but Master Secretary?" She drew a great breath and swiped at her eyes.

To his horror, Cromwell felt tears prick at his own eyes. Dear God. He would not cry in front of her. "Majesty," he ground out, searching for the right words to spin into golden thread for her, "the investigation into the conduct in your rooms is at an early stage yet. It could easily result in no findings, no charges-"

"I'm going to die, am I not?" She lifted her tearstained face, somehow more beautiful than ever in the candlelight.

He swallowed hard. "I know not, madam."

Anne nodded minutely, over and over, her eyes falling back to the floor. Her shoulders drew together again, pricking forward like the ears of an eager mare, rendering the Queen of England round-shouldered as an old woman. She closed her eyes against the realization. Her palms covered her face again, and Anne began to cry, really cry. She did not sigh and wilt; there was no maidenly disintegration here. He watched her, riveted. These were the effects of his work, the tasks he laboured over day and night, sweating the facts and figures and theories of law and practice so he could give Henry what he wanted.

The cut on her lip was healing nicely. He saw it now, a pale pink, that delicate colour on the inside of a seashell. It barely registered on her face, but he saw flashes of it between her hands, as the candlelight caught it and illuminated it. He remembered how he had reached for her, the universal sign of empathy, concern. She had brushed him away, straightened her back, and somehow put the arrogance back into her gait as she left Henry's presence chamber. He remembered his panic when he thought she had been found beaten and bloody in the forest yesterday. He remembered his anxiety that Henry's sleeping posset was actually poison. But she was right, he would hurt her, he would not spare her, and there was nothing either of them could do now to change her fate, whatever Henry might decide that should be.

Slowly, Cromwell crossed the meter or so that separated them. His arms lifted, shy and awkward, and circled her. He brought her against his chest, her palms still covering her face, her elbows against his ribs. As she cried for what felt like years but was probably only a few minutes, he busied himself with memorizing what it felt like to hold a woman, for he suspected he never would again. His hands stroked her hair, cupping the crown of her head. They trailed down her back, hardly able to feel her through her robe and whatever she had underneath that, but he could feel the warmth of her body. He bent his head to hers and rested his chin on her head, like one might do for an old friend. In some ways he still considered her a friend. Until his breath hitched and pulse raced when her hands grazed his chain of office. Then he remembered why it was better not to think of her as a friend.

"I think about it too," Anne murmured tearfully. When he remained silent, she rushed on, "What I asked you today, outside, and you said – and I think about it, too, sometimes I cannot stop," she whispered, a strangled confession.

He wanted to pretend she was saying none of these things. He would at least like to be able to believe, in theory, that she was guilty of the crimes for which he would have her executed. This sort of weeping and guilt was not conducive to the image of her he wanted to paint for himself. He would rather her shut herself away, give the illusion of having something to hide, than see the irony and tragedy that lay ahead and express herself honestly to him. That was not the sort of woman he wanted to put to death. He wanted to ask her if she could not just go back to being a hateful bitch.

Instead, he said, "I see."

"Does it confuse you sometimes?"

He was smelling her hair, noting that at least he would be free of rosewater perfume after she was gone. "Yes," he whispered, his eyes closing as he ran his cheek over the side of her head.

"Thank God," Anne almost whimpered, tipping her head back so their cheeks came in contact. He did not pull away. "Thank God I was not imagining it." He felt her eyelashes against his cheekbone.

"You were not." He tried to calm his galloping heart. He wanted to lick the tears from her cheekbones, from her neck, chase them down into her robe. They were two bodylengths from the spot where they had made love. He wondered if she was wearing stockings.

Anne moved away from him suddenly, curling one arm around her middle while the other went back to plucking at her braid. "Your boys," she said as if it had just occurred to her, "seemed to be offering me safe passage to somewhere other than the palace yesterday. When they came to find me. Was that on your orders?"

"My boys do nothing that is not on my orders."

She licked her lips. "So you wished me to flee?"

Cromwell spread his fingers and gently placed his fingertips together. "I wished you to have the option."

"You were kind, Master Cromwell. Is it because you are as guilty as I am?" There was no mirth, just curiosity.

"I thought you deserved a chance."

The other arm crossed the first. "Do I still deserve one?"

Surprised, Cromwell narrowed his eyes. "Do you wish to?"

"If I did," Anne murmured, "would I have a chance?"

"You are free to run, Your Majesty."

"You would not pursue me?"

He chuckled without a bit of humour. He imagined, in a flash, what it would be like to pursue her. Dark hair flying, footsteps lighter than a spring shower, billowing skirts in red, black, white, blue. In a dark hallway, in a quiet forest, in a candlelit room with a bed. He imagined what he would do to her once he caught her. For he certainly would catch her. His chest against her back, his arms around her middle, the pulsating of her heart so strong that his mouth would taste it when he kissed her shoulders. It would be worth the chase, worth the pursuit, when he ran his hands over her arms and felt her shudder against him. "I would give you a healthy head start."

She backed up a step. "I am afraid," she repeated, it struck him. She feared her family, her husband, her allies, her court, and now her ladies, the last bit of comfort and loyalty she had known, which he had wrenched from beneath her. All for the sake of something he could have fabricated without their input.

"I know." He nodded. "I know, Your Majesty."

Anne rubbed her eyes vigourously. "I should not have come here."

"No, you should not have."

"D'you think I was followed?"

"No."

"Not a chance?" She sniffled. She looked so desolate.

He could not help himself. He reached for her face, cupped the side of it in one hand. "If anyone was following you, it would be my boys. Don't fear them. They would do you no harm. And they are abed for the night."

Anne pulled back, making his fingertips slide across her cheek, the exquisite turn of her jawbone. She almost laughed, but seemed to have lost the strength. "You speak as though to comfort me, and yet I cannot think who has done me more harm."

"I'm sorry," he tried. His hand lingered, but instead of dropping, he reached for her again. His hand was firm on her face. His thumb traced her lips.

"No need." She closed her lips softly on the tip of his thumb. He could have sworn he felt her tongue dart up to taste his skin. "I would have done the same to you. You are just quicker."

"That is why I am sorry." Cromwell felt himself gravitating toward her, longing to put his mouth on her. He had to stop this madness. He had barely recovered from last time. With great effort, he removed his hand from her face. "May I assist you with anything else tonight, madam?"

She regarded him for a moment, lost in thought, and then she moved against him, so quickly that he did not have a chance to react, that he wondered if she really was a celestial figure. No mortal woman was capable of all that she did. She stood on tiptoes and her fingers spread, catlike, on his chest. Her nose grazed his nose. With the slightest tilting of his chin he could have kissed her; he dared not speak for fear his tongue would find its way into her mouth. Anne let the contact linger, her body pressed steadily against his, and they looked at one another's eyes. "Should I run?" she whispered.

"If you wish, Your Majesty. Go and I will let you go."

A long pause hung over them. Cromwell wondered if she could feel his heart thumping through his jacket. Anne's eyelashes swept down, and he felt something on his skin – did she brush her lips against his? – before she turned away. "Goodnight, Master Cromwell."

**UP NEXT:**

Elizabeth was playing merchant today, waddling back and forth between the ladies who sat in a circle on the floor, each waiting her turn to receive a flower from the little princess. Elizabeth presented each one with a curtsey and a sprig of wildflowers, which had been wilting in her mother's rooms for almost a week now. Anne supposed this put her in the position of merchant-master, or merchant-mistress. A novel concept indeed.

Then she saw him, a figure in black, a denser black than what others might have worn because he radiated it; black in his posture, the way he held his neck, the angle of his elbows as he stalked in the garden like an animal. Her husband.

She all but fell out of the window seat, jamming her feet into her shoes. "Begging your pardon, ladies," she excused herself, picking her way through the circle, hardly able to bunch enough of her exceptionally voluminous skirts into her fists to avoid knocking her ladies over. At the outer rim of the circle, Anne spun. "Elizabeth," she said softly, then urgently, "Elizabeth. Come here." She held out her hands.

"Why?" Elizabeth asked, cocking her head to one side. Her arm froze in the act of doling out a handful of near-dead flowers to a grinning Mary Shelton.

"Come, Elizabeth!" Her voice was sharper than she intended. "Come, sweetheart."

Elizabeth reluctantly dropped the flowers and made her way toward her mother. She struggled when Anne picked her up. "Walk," she insisted.

"No, my love, I have to hold you." Anne struggled through her chambers and down the stairs, following Henry's path. She could see him at the far corner of the terrace, and she hastened up the stairs, breaking out in sweat, ignoring Elizabeth's questions.

When he saw her, he stopped cold in his tracks, then turned away in disgust. His eyes stayed on her face as he spun on his heel to turn his back on her and Elizabeth. Her heart broke all over again, for there, in his face, was the man she had loved, and the man who had loved her. "Henry," she implored, "please."

A slight, barely perceptible squaring of the shoulders. The way one would brush off a jokester in the marketplace. Not one's wife. The mother of one's child. Her eyes filled with tears. "Henry. _Please._"


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: Hi everyone! This chapter is long – almost thrice as long as my last one. I didn't mean for it to become this way, but I wanted to pack in a lot, and the story took on a mind of its own. It's a lot of Cromwell, and I tried to vary the scenes and insert sections of other characters in as well. I hope you all enjoy it, and if you could find it in your heart to leave a review so I know what parts worked best or what you each liked, I would be so appreciative. There's a mess of different things happening here and I am a little unsure whether I am pulling off each characterization and interaction, and working to make my characters and plot more believable yet also entertaining is my main focus right now.**

**The preview scene from the last chapter, which obviously alluded to the famous scene of Henry and Anne's last encounter in the garden where she is toting Elizabeth, actually did not fit and was bumped to the next chapter. This chapter just got so long and I want to spread out the sections in a meaningful way, so that section will show up next time =)**

**Be warned: there is sexual talk in this chapter, and it doesn't involve the characters you might suspect. **

**Also be advised: Smeaton's interrogation scene occurs here, but there is no torture involved (the scene in The Tudors is frankly ridiculous). Cromwell is deft and effective and does not need a strategically knotted rope.**

**Rae, I am very happy that you responded well to my characterization of Jane! I am trying to peek into her character without giving it all away, because there is a good element of mystery to her historically I think. Please let me know what you think of this chapter!**

**CrystalSearcher, LOL thank you for FLAILing! Do you like this chapter as well?**

**Le Creationist, thank you so much for your comments and compliments. I have those moments where I want to assault Jane Seymour, too, especially because I cannot pin her down. Anne is similarly difficult to pin down, but in a more rewarding way, I guess. I am so glad you have taken to my portrayal of Anne and the tension between her and Cromwell! They did not slip up last time, but there will be more opportunity for that in the future, so who knows? And YES I agree, Henry is downright appalling at this point. He's going to rake Anne over the coals because, and I hope I am showing this subtly in the story, he is still half in love with her. I hope I am able to make your night again this time, and please let me know how you liked this longer chapter =)**

**PS:**

**Points for those who can find the Wolf Hall reference (1) and Bring Up the Bodies reference (1)!**

**And I have decided to share my love of epic music with you all – this stuff helps me write, create, edit, and inspire. Each new chapter from here on out will include an artist and song recommendation. First we have the classic X-Ray dog, the father of all epic music groups. My favorite songs are "The Vision" (famous from the movie Atonement) and "Here Comes the King" (from every trailer ever lol). Have a listen if you'd like, and enjoy!**

30 April 1536

i.

Morning

"Probably need to start examining the men," Cromwell muttered as Riche settled the stack of notes from Cromwell's interviews with the queen's ladies. The papers fluttered and evened out against Riche's knee.

"Who first?" Riche's rusty eyebrows twitched upward. Cromwell handed over the list he had made. The trove of men they would put forth as the queen's lovers was small, although Cromwell intended fully to fill Henry's mind with ideas of dozens of faceless men, at least one per night, lining up to mount Anne's silken body and insert their members between her splayed legs. He had known all along that he would not need a mass execution; there were no names that he had written and scratched out; he had chosen wisely. The names on this paper would soon be on the lips of everyone at court: _have you heard?– he's been sentenced to death for helping himself to the king's wife._

"Mark Smeaton?" Riche's eyebrows knitted. Riche had been present during all the interviews, but the musician had not seemed a likely candidate for the final list.

Cromwell poured some wine into the goblet Mrs. Lockton had left. "Would you prefer me keep him around?"

"No, sir, I just…" Riche shook his head. "He seems rather worthless."

"Believe me, he is better off dead. Where could he expect to find patronage, after? Not only that," Cromwell took a sip. "He is not a gentleman. He will crack under pressure. I'll have him in first for questioning. His statement will be powerful as a bargaining tool. And an insurance policy."

"Henry Norris will be difficult."

"Henry Norris is the bane of my life."

Riche looked at him skeptically. "Henry Norris is perhaps His Majesty's only friend, my lord."

He thought of Anne, yesterday, her imperious tone quavering, _And Nan? Nan too? She is my only friend, you know._ He shook it off, affecting a teasing grin. "Oh, Richard, are you insinuating that His Majesty is not popular with his courtiers?"

Rubbing his bleary eyes – he did not seem to have recovered yet from the lack of sleep two nights ago – Riche shook his head at Cromwell. "You know what I mean. True friends are rare at this court. That sort of position near the king is rare. Although I suppose that's why you want to be rid of him. But what of Francis Weston? The king hardly likes him at all."

"Nor do I, and he is a nuisance in the infantile stage. He is a Charles-Brandon-in-waiting." He dropped his head backward, resting it on the back of his chair. "Stop looking at me like that, Master Riche," he sighed. "His Majesty has no need of Weston. No one has any need of Weston. Even his father laments that he is a waster and a crippled appendage on the family genealogy."

"Are we to bury all men whose fathers find them disappointing? I shall see myself out."

"If they are rumoured sodomites, it doesn't help."

Riche sat back. "Is that your story or someone else's?"

"Not that it matters," Cromwell said pointedly, "but it's a consistent whispering. Over years."

"Isn't he married?"

Cromwell nodded. "A young wife and son in the country."

"And you'd leave them bereft?"

Mrs. Lockton bustled in to offer Riche some hot cider. Ignoring her presence, Cromwell licked his lips and then raised both hands, palms toward heaven. "Marriage to a squandering sodomite," the left hand bounced downward, "or access to his income and the freedom to remarry. She will not be bereft, my lord. I am not a cruel man. His sisters – thank you, Mrs. Lockton – his sisters are both married off; Henry Norris's children are already wards of his brother John. I have considered every detail."

"No wonder you never sleep." Riche sank back in his chair with his mug of cider and held up the list again. "And William Brereton. A tumor of a man, to be sure, but why? He is hardly ever about the court."

"You know how he runs matters in Wales. A purging is in order. When the opportunity presents itself…" he shrugged.

Riche was shaking his head, staring into the air above his mug. "It just seems excessive."

"I know it does," Cromwell nodded. "But it is where we are, and we must do what we must. Who knows, Richie, maybe one day you will be sitting in this chair, assuring some young man that it's time to rid the court of old Master Cromwell, who has worn out his worth."

"I had no knowledge that you were a jester."

The skin around Cromwell's mouth folded easily into lines as he smiled. "I am a realist, Master Riche. The situations present themselves to me, I find the shortest path to their solution."

"Forgive me, my lord, but this does not seem to be the shortest path. Would the shortest not necessarily include less men? Whether the queen be accused of adultery with one man or one hundred, will the outcome not be the same? Must we bring out the feather duster and use this excuse to sweep away all men who present you with difficulty?"

"That is an overstatement. Most men present me with difficulty. Four is a modest number."

"Do you believe her guilty of adultery?"

"With these four men?"

"With any man."

Cromwell sucked in breath, shaking his head. "It is not for me to decide that."

"It seems that it is already decided." Riche flicked the list of names back onto Cromwell's desk. "Do you believe it?"

Cromwell placed his palms on his desk, approximating them to where Anne's thighs had rested. "I do."

Riche swallowed. "I think that if she were to go looking, she could find adultery in most any corner of this court."

"Why would she investigate others' adultery?"

"No," Riche shook his head, "I mean that, if she were given to the idea of loose sexual morality, I do not think she would find it difficult to secure partners." His forehead wrinkled with the effort of what he was trying to say.

"You mean because of the loose morals of the court?" Cromwell's eyes twitched from his wine to Riche's troubled face.

"No," Riche shook his head again.

"Out with it, man, you are barely speaking English."

Riche cleared his throat. "I mean that she is attractive."

Cromwell nodded, enlightened. "Yes. She is. There are few who would argue that. The queen is a beautiful woman."

"Not just her beauty," Riche shook his head again, sadly, "it is her… person. I think she would have no difficulty in attracting hordes of men, should she want to. There is something about her that I cannot describe. I think many men see it. Many men feel it. You mustn't repeat this, my lord, and I am your servant to the death, but I find myself sorrowful of this. That it will end where I know it must end. I sometimes feel a special affection for the queen." His cheeks reddened. "I barely know her. And I feel a special affection for her."

While Riche babbled, his tone apologetic, Cromwell thought of the men he had personally watched follow Anne with their eyes. Mark Smeaton, of course. Wyatt. Wyatt would cut out his own heart to have an hour of Anne at his pleasure. Weston, Norris, he had caught them both watching her form, each in his mind's eye smoothing her gown off her shoulders, unlacing her stomacher. Every man was charmed by her, whether they admitted it or not. Wolsey had remarked to him, above a decade ago, after the Percy debacle, that Anne was dangerous as long as she stayed unattached on the marriage market. _I can hardly blame the boy, _the cardinal had said. _If I were twenty years younger…_ She had been so young then. So young.

Before she had come from France, the tradition was, the French king had thought to find his way beneath her skirts the way he had her sister. If the elder sister was bonny and succulent, Francis had reasoned, the younger must be even better. Anne had held out against his swaggering, sweating pretensions, the way she would with Henry, and she was branded cold and prudish for it. Mademoiselle Boleyn, the shrew, the one who preferred a book and a fireplace to lighthearted pastime, exercise of the mind to pleasure of the flesh. When he heard the tale, he had thought, she must be as a fish on ice. That was before he had watched her dance, seen her smile, observed the King of England as he ravished her with his eyes. Henry had chortled to Wolsey that he could not decide whether to deflower or devour her.

There was something timeless about her attraction, he had decided long ago, when he thought himself above it. Even men older than he – Sir Edward Neville, for example – watched her, their eyes straining in their sunken faces, careful not to show overtly their interest in the new queen, whom they denied publicly in favour of her predecessor. Bigamy and papal bulls notwithstanding, when Henry's wife swept through a gallery, it was mainly the women who kept their eyes downcast appropriately. The male eyes in the room, even those of a man like Francis Weston, who was a decade Anne's junior, found their way to her.

Even those who hated her, as he sometimes – no, often – did, were vulnerable to her charm. He had watched Suffolk glare at her for years. The duke's strong-lined face creased into anger whenever Anne neared. But on more than one occasion, he, Cromwell, had watched Suffolk watching Anne, whose form the duke held in his gaze for a few moments too long. A few moments too long for the gaze to be purely one of hatred. Brandon would clench his jaw when Anne hovered near him, but as she glided past, Cromwell had seen him close his eyes, just for the space of a single breath. In earlier years, he had wondered if Suffolk's hatred was so strong that he was trying to control himself, to keep himself from striking the king's sweetheart. After a time, the closing of Brandon's eyes became a gesture that Cromwell recognized, having witnessed it on the countenances of other men, for other reasons. Maybe Brandon was smelling Anne's perfume, his nose pricked eagerly toward the scent of rosewater, so desperate to catch a whiff of her that he was imagining it – _no, it is not; is that it?_ Maybe he closed his eyes to imagine that her lips, her caressing voice, were for him. Maybe he was imagining what it would be like to peel off her stockings with his teeth, wondering how her inner thighs would taste. Maybe that was why he, and so many men, wanted her gone. They could not have her, and at a base level, they could not bear life at court with a creature whose presence was a continuous taunt.

The beauty of Anne was that she did this without meaning to. He, Cromwell, was quite certain of this. Anne knew how to play a man's emotions, how to draw him in with soft touches and whispers, and hold him at an arm's length for an indefinite amount of time, to coddle and cosset his fluctuations and flare herself at the appropriate time to send him scurrying, and then to crumble and set him racing back to gather her in his arms. But she was a woman, and flighty, and passionate. She was not in full control of herself. She lost herself in arrogance, in fear, in confidence, in passion. He had witnessed it all. She was no mystical temptress, although it was easy at moments to see her thus. Her effortless attraction of everyone around her was just part of who she was. Some men and women had this quality. Henry had it. Anne had it. They could not have avoided one another forever. Two people of such shimmering, sensual appeal could only hope to have a calm marriage for so long. Anne would pay the price because she had married a king. It was a tragedy, really.

"You are not the only one, Master Riche," he said finally. "Look around this court, look silently, and you will see that you are not alone."

Riche nodded slowly, having finished his cider, and eased forward as if to rise from his seat opposite Cromwell. "What think you of her?"

"I am too busy to think anything of her, other than to write notes for how to prepare her rooms in the Tower." Cromwell picked up his quill, pulling the list back toward himself.

"You like her, yes?"

He did not look up. "I like no one."

"My lord, you are human too."

"Not when I am behind this desk, wearing this chain of office." He jingled the links and almost recoiled at the familiar sound and sensation. Some days he could not escape this.

"I shall catch you at your leisure sometime," Riche chuckled, finally hauling himself to his feet. "But I think I rarely see you without the chain."

"You never do," Cromwell corrected. "I am not allowed to be human."

"You'll have to be, someday," Riche said firmly. He cleared his throat. "Any particular reason Wyatt didn't make the list? He was mentioned multiple times when we interviewed the ladies, more times certainly than the four you chose. His obsession with her is ancient and public knowledge. So? Is he not enough of a nuisance? Have you some other plan for him?"

"I like his poetry."

Riche guffawed, turning on his heel. "I await the day, Master Cromwell, where you and I will be of one mind."

"You do not wish yourself into my mind, Richie, trust me," Cromwell called as the door swung closed between them.

ii.

Afternoon

Late that afternoon, he found himself sitting opposite another blonde Jane, this one Lady Rochford. She gazed at him wearily, her full lips puckered in an expression of sullenness. "Why have you asked me here?" she asked, unblinking. "Or summoned. Summoned is more like it."

"I wished the pleasure of your company." He smiled.

Lady Rochford snorted. Loudly. "My husband wishes to annul me, I think. Yes?"

"No," he said baldly before catching himself. "I mean, no, my lady, that is not the reason I have asked you here."

Her face was blank. "What then?"

"In recent investigations, it has come to the king's attention and mine that Her Majesty Queen Anne has engaged in some inappropriate behavior."

"And you think my husband is her ally?"

His brow wrinkled. "The behaviour – or misbehaviour – is of a sexual nature, my lady."

"And you think my husband is her ally?" Lady Rochford repeated.

Cromwell actually faltered. He looked at Lady Rochford's drawn, uneven face. Her expression and eyes were flat; the skin of her neck sagged, and a line, curved like the spine of a rowboat, dangled from each corner of her mouth as though having been cut with a scythe. He looked at her and saw a woman on the edge of reason, of sanity. It was no secret that the Rochfords had a troubled marriage. Lord Rochford's distaste for his wife was not something he had ever cared to conceal. Cromwell looked at Jane Rochford, the eager daughter of a minor but honourable lord, and saw that marriage to a Boleyn had driven her to despair.

"Why would you think that would be, my lady?" he asked her cautiously.

She blinked once. "It would not surprise me."

In spite of himself, Cromwell sat back in his chair in shock. He rarely felt shock. "To clarify our conversation, madam, I am telling you that it has been determined that Queen Anne has engaged in sexual intercourse outside her marriage with His Majesty."

"And I am telling you that I would wager my jointure that one of the men with whom she has committed adultery is my husband."

"Lord Rochford."

"Lord Rochford."

"Her brother."

"Her brother."

"Do you say this out of spite, Lady Rochford?"

She paused. "I say it out of years of nuances, of glances, of observations. My marriage is not, it has never been one of love – you know that, Cromwell, everyone does – I love my husband, but he does not return my feelings. My feelings are not his. He has preferred the beds of other men to mine."

His mouth dropped open. "George Boleyn?"

"Am I married to someone else?" Tears pricked at her eyes. "He lusts after all women and more. He lusts after all beautiful creatures, I think, although he has apparently never found me beautiful. He lives for his sister. He gives her opinions on everything, does almost nothing without her approval – he helped dress her before she went to the king on her wedding night. Just the two of them in the room. Her ladies were dismissed. Who ever heard of a man so eager to help his sister choose her clothes? He will not even initiate intercourse with me – I am his wife," she said hotly, her tone breaking a little in desperation. "I love him."

"You accuse him of incest."

"A woman cannot go on under such circumstances forever," she whispered. "He is a sodomite, he has told me so. Sexually, my husband deviates from the laws of nature."

"Incest and sodomy are neither of them light accusations, my lady, but there is a large difference even between them."

Tears spilled down Jane Boleyn's cheeks. She bowed her head. "I know what I am saying, I know how lethal these charges are, Master Cromwell. To live further with the current way of things would be to sign my own death warrant, and I have done nothing wrong, I have done nothing wrong other than to marry a man whom my father bid me marry, and placed my heart where I should not have." She rocked back and forth, her hands knitted into a tight ball in front of her chest. "God forgive me. I love my husband."

Cromwell ran a hand over his head, trying to neutralize the horrified expression he was sure stayed on his face. "Lady Rochford… do you wish to see your husband dead?"

After a long moment, she wiped her eyes and mouth, unsure of what to do with the thick clear discharge under her nose. Cromwell handed her a fresh linen napkin. Jane Rochford blotted her eyes, and he thought that had her life been different, she could be an attractive woman. Her hair was pulled back in an elaborate coif – she certainly had the extra time to spend on grooming – and she wore no cosmetics on her face. Her hair and eyes were of pleasing shades. It was a shame that she had been wasted on George Boleyn. "I wish him to live and be the husband I want," she whispered, breathless, "the husband I have dreamed and prayed he would be."

He smiled sadly and held up his empty hands. "I can influence many things, my lady, but not your husband's personality."

"I know." She closed her eyes, napkin still pressed to her face, and nodded. "I know. If anyone could have turned him, it should have been me, his wife, and I tried, I tried. I thought that if I could give him children, and he would see them as the living image of both of us, it might temper his feelings toward me, but…" She patted her stomach, not shapeless and softened from bearing children. She had never conceived, to his knowledge. The Rochfords had been married ten years. She had not had so much as an early miscarriage.

"And have you any proof of the misconduct you allege?" he asked gently, wishing he would find less official-sounding words.

"No more than my word," she shook her head in sorrow.

That would be more than enough.

"Lady Rochford – may I call you Jane?" She nodded tearfully. "Do you fear the revenge of your husband's relatives, should he be brought to account for his actions?"

She thought it over. He asked the question not because the answer truly mattered, but because he wanted to judge how much of this she had planned in advance. "I fear my father-in-law due to his nature, but I cannot tell with him, whether he would protect his son or abandon him." She shook her head. "I cannot say I know enough of my husband's other relatives to make such a judgment either. Surely, his sister would defend him, but she is guilty as he is." Lady Rochford chewed her lips as though she was hungry.

Cromwell nodded. "Let's get you something to drink, Jane, and let's talk about your relationship with your husband and what you have seen." He got up to fetch Mrs. Lockton.

Jane Boleyn caught his hand as he passed by, grasping at his fingers. "I am not a devil woman," she whispered desperately, "I did not wish things to turn out this way."

He brought his other palm up to clasp her hand between both of his. She seemed to melt a little at the simple gesture. "I know, madam. Have no fear. The Lord will not judge you. This is not your doing. None of us asked for this."

Her intricately twisted hair hardly moved as she tilted her head to rest it against the back of his hand. "Thank God for you."

He suddenly thought of Lissie, imagined her thick with his child, hair undone, waiting for him with a book in his warm bed. He could see the way she would curl herself against his body, asking him how he did at the end of the long day. The image was real, wistful, and wholly inexplicable. Jane Boleyn repeated, "Thank God for you, Master Cromwell." He tried to think if he had ever heard that combination of words before.

iii.

Evening

At once he saw that Smeaton would not go the way he had hoped.

The musician was barely more than a boy, and indeed he even looked like an overgrown child, and an urchin of a child at that. Could none of his patrons afford to get him a haircut? Smeaton greeted Riche cordially, the older man barely looking up from his notes. Wisely, Smeaton did not ask what Riche was doing in Cromwell's office when everyone else had long since retired for the day. He had brought two lutes. Perhaps he thought Master Secretary would want to play a duet.

Cromwell laid the groundwork carefully, assessing Smeaton's sense of awareness and involvement with the queen. He asked questions about the atmosphere in the queen's chambers, the activities of her ladies-in-waiting, and any unusual behaviour that Smeaton may have witnessed recently. Smeaton looked confused, and kept answering that "ladies will act as they will," a dismissive hand gesture punctuating his uncertainty.

"And what of Her Majesty?" Cromwell finally asked, quietly. "Does she act as she wills?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Smeaton shrugged. "Has she misbehaved in some way?"

Cromwell cleared his throat. "It has been alleged by various witnesses that the queen makes sport of her body and suffers sundry men to handle it in private." The beautiful words fit together with ease, and Smeaton visibly started at the calmness of Cromwell's sentence.

"What?"

"It has been alleged-"

"No, I heard you, my lord, but I – what is this to do with me?" Smeaton's eyes widened in alarm. "I am suspected as one of her lovers?"

Cromwell glanced at Riche. "Minute Master Smeaton's immediate assumption that he is considered a bedmate of Her Majesty."

Smeaton tensed and grasped the arm of his chair, whipping his head around to stare at Riche. "Master Riche, no, I did not mean-"

"How many times have you had her?"

"What- I…" Smeaton's face was the picture of horror, but Cromwell could sense a bit of irony in his expression, as though he suspected Cromwell might be just testing him, just teasing him.

He held up a hand in a conciliatory gesture. "No need to give me a precise count, Master Smeaton. Just an approximation. How many times do you think you've had her, in her bed or otherwise?"

"Master Cromwell-"

"Also consider other sexual acts, the French practices, you know – not just intercourse. How often would you say?"

"Never," Smeaton bit out, hasty and panicked. "Never, I have never, God help me-"

"Note Master Smeaton's request that the Lord help him," Cromwell called to Riche. Riche raised a palm in acknowledgement.

"No, no, stop, please," Smeaton begged, launching out of his chair. Once he stood, he looked unsure what to do. Accost Cromwell? Tear Riche's sheet to shreds? Haltingly, he took a step toward the secretary's desk, looked back and forth, brought his hands up to chest level as though to strike out or protect himself. Cromwell watched unblinkingly. Smeaton backed up. "Master Cromwell, I have no – I have had nothing to do with Her Majesty."

"Sit down, Master Smeaton." Cromwell leaned back in his chair comfortably. The musician lowered himself to the edge of his own seat. "I have it from various members of the court that you spend an inappropriate amount of time in the queen's chambers."

"I play music for Her Majesty and her household," Smeaton protested.

"She is a beautiful woman," Cromwell said as if consolingly. "Some might even call her bewitching. Has she worked some spell on you, Mark? You must try and shake your mind clear of it. I must have the truth, and I will get it."

Smeaton's chest began to heave. "I've had nothing to do with Her Majesty, I swear it, I swear on my grave."

Riche's voice interjected. "Noting Master Smeaton's oath to be placed on something that does not exist."

"Thank you, Master Riche." Cromwell's eyes stayed on Smeaton's face.

"What is this? What in Heaven's name is all this?" Smeaton looked back and forth between the only other two souls in the room. "Jesus Christ. It's because the king wants rid of her, is it not? He has to have a reason to cast her off quickly, and he wants rid of her, and so you must-" Smeaton stopped abruptly, finishing his sentence instead with a strangled groan from his throat.

"Root out her lovers to free the king from an adulterous wife? Yes, I am charged with that task."

"But I am not her lover," Smeaton insisted.

"Yet you assumed immediately that I would think so. Shall I have Master Riche read back the progression of the conversation?"

"No." Smeaton buried his hands in his mane. "It matters not at all what I say, does it?" His fingers bunched as he yanked on his own curls.

"Nothing matters more than what you say."

The musician began to rock himself back and forth, his eyes squeezed shut. Cromwell rolled his eyes at Riche. Smeaton sniffed long and hard, his single diamond earring catching the torchlight with each movement. "If I have been brought here, then I will be charged, and if charged, convicted; and those who commit adultery with a queen are guilty of treason, and then, off to meet the axeman," he babbled.

"Minute Master Smeaton's erudite awareness of the legal and penal repercussions for the crime of which he has declared himself a suspect."

"Oh, God," Smeaton's eyes wrinkled as they closed even tighter against his interrogator, tears dripping, unheeded, from their sockets. Cromwell cocked his head to the side as he watched Smeaton cry openly in front of his desk, tears dripping onto the leather cases of the lutes he had brought, and thought that this young man was the second person to cry in that chair today. "Oh, God, save me, and save the queen from her ferocious lord and husband."

"Ferocious," Cromwell called.

"Ferocious," Riche repeated flatly from the corner.

Smeaton raised his face. "She loves him, Cromwell, she adores him, do you know that?"

Cromwell applied a confused expression. "Of whom are we speaking? The queen's husband, or another of her lovers?"

"You are a demon." Smeaton's tearful eyes bored into his. "You deserve no more than to throw yourself in a muddy puddle as Her Majesty passes so she can avoid spoiling her slippers. The degree of disrespect you show for your anointed queen is revolting."

"As is the level of disloyalty you exhibit in your carnal relations with her, to deceive and betray her wedded husband, who also happens to be your anointed king and master."

"I would never," Smeaton mumbled as he descended into tears again, doubling over as though in pain. "I would never betray the king."

"The ferocious king," Cromwell corrected.

"I spoke in anger at the way he has treated his wife. You must have seen the cut on her lip, Cromwell. Everyone saw it."

Cromwell was careful not to display any reaction. "So you do not recant your description of His Majesty."

"Whether I recant it or no, you will make the record reflect what it must." The words tripped and flowed over one another from underneath the mop of curls that shook with each shuddering sob.

Not with Smeaton carrying on thus, he wouldn't. "The faster you confess your adultery and name the queen's other lovers, Master Smeaton, the faster this will be over. I understand that Her Majesty has an unusual power over men." He glanced over at Riche, who blanched. "I would not be surprised to hear of any details of black magic that you may have encountered since coming to court."

"I cannot confess to any deed which I have not committed, Master Cromwell. I have my faults and I have my sins, but dallying with the queen is not one of them. Hear me now, man to man, I am innocent, and she is too. Whatever charges you bring against me, know that the queen and I are both innocent of them. She is a holy woman, a dutiful queen, and if-" Smeaton shook his head, backed out of that sentence. "I have been blessed to find artistic patronage at this court, and I have deserved none of the politeness Her Majesty has shown to me. You and I, Cromwell," Smeaton wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and nose, "we were not bred to walk the same corridors as royalty. I am lucky. But I would not presume upon any of it. And I would never dream to."

Cromwell exchanged a long glance with Riche. The secretary took a deep breath, let it out in a long sigh, testing the contents of the wine jug Mrs. Lockton had left and reaching up to knead his thinking muscles while the musician buried his face in his hands and wept, murmuring, "Oh, God. Oh, my God."

1 May 1536

iv.

Dawn

"I don't know how you do this." Riche hunched over in his chair, the mottled dark spots under his eyes looking more like bruises than fatigue.

"I usually don't." The heavy door to Cromwell's outer chamber clanked shut somewhere in the distance. It was just dawn, and Smeaton was being taken to Cromwell's house in London. The secretary looked at his partner. "You should get some rest. The next few days will try your stamina."

"It seems nothing tries yours," Riche shot back in a whisper.

Cromwell scratched at his own stubble. "I might dissolve into sleep or hysteria when you leave."

Riche shook his head, bracing both hands against his desk and forcing himself to his feet. "Always wry, never frank."

"It's a gift. Good morrow, my lord." As Riche dragged himself out of Cromwell's office, the secretary sat down on the surface of his desk. He would have to get a note to the king as soon as one of his boys was up. Smeaton had given him nothing but a dozen clammy handkerchiefs coated in nasal discharge and a crippling headache. He would break the boy, he knew it. The rack would not be necessary. Smeaton was not that strong. And in any event, he would not have people accusing him of torturing the lad into a false confession. He would have to pace himself; Smeaton was only the first.

v.

Afternoon

The eyes of Edward Seymour's wife seemed to move independently of her face. She smirked at her sister-in-law. "Have you wondered how you'll please him when the moment comes?"

Jane Seymour narrowed her eyes as she glared back over her embroidery. "For shame, Anne."

"Just asking," Anne Seymour said lightly. "The Lord permits us to enjoy acts of the flesh as long as they take place within the bounds of matrimony, you know."

"I've not thought about it."

"You are not human, then. Does the king know his sweetheart is no flesh-and-blood woman?"

Jane's soft brown eyes met Anne's lively brown ones. Her blonde hair cascaded over both shoulders, which were also covered with an opaque partlet and damask sleeves, but she suddenly felt naked before her sister-in-law. "He won't expect me to have any knowledge of consummation, Anne, because I have never engaged in the act."

"Knowledge, of course not. The ability to give him a pleasurable experience, yes." One eyebrow arched on Anne Seymour's porcelain face. "Do you desire him?"

Jane paused. "Of course."

"Or do you fear him?"

Another pause. Jane lowered her head a little. "I have a slight fear of the moment when he takes my maidenhead, yes."

"D'you look forward to the other parts?"

A dainty clearing of the throat. "I think. I think they must be enjoyable. With a man who loves me."

"But you lack knowledge of what they are?" Anne Seymour tilted her head to look into her sister-in-law's face. "Surely your brothers have not tutored you in that part."

Jane gasped, sitting back. "Anne-"

The brunette rolled her eyes. "I meant verbally, not in deed. God's sake, Jane, you cannot expect to be such a fool after you are queen."

"I…" Jane shook her head. "Lissie, too. Sisters sometimes – you know, had one of us had a man, then both of us could at least understand. We, neither of us, has been used thus by a man."

Anne's lips parted, joined back together. "I know I am not a true sister, but perhaps I might offer some advice. I am not totally useless, you know."

Jane glanced around as if to make sure they were alone. "It might be helpful to hear," she agreed softly.

A small smile graced Anne Seymour's round face. "What would you like to know?"

"Will it hurt?"

"Maybe a little. Not much," Anne assured her. "The king loves you, and he will want to please you. He will not rush to have his way with you. You have not spent years stoking his lust and building a fire in him; I suspect he will respect your virginity and take pains to be gentle with you."

"I fear the pain."

Anne nodded. "I understand – I did, too. I can only say that the best remedy is to let him prepare you with his hands. He will want to touch you, and although it may seem strange and even a little embarrassing, the act will be much sweeter for you if you let him start with that. If you are feeling shy, simply say, my lord, I am feeling shy, and he will accommodate you. On your wedding night, he will be the most gracious and loving husband you can imagine."

Jane's countenance relaxed as Anne spoke. "And…" she glanced around again and slid forward on her chair until she perched on its edge. "How can I awaken his lust?"

Her sister-in-law cupped a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. "My dear Jane. Believe me, his lust will be awakened. He will see you that afternoon in your bridal gown, shining only for him but covered and veiled and bejeweled and festooned. The two of you will gaze into each other's eyes lovingly, and secret touches of the hand, of the elbow, on the small of your back, will pass between you. Then suddenly you will stand alone in the bedchamber, clad in a white linen shift and with your hair and neck unadorned. Few things will fuel a man's hunger more than a glimpse of your silhouette through your nightshift as the fire twists and flashes. You will not have to do anything."

Nodding with a mix of eagerness and apprehension, Jane pursed her lips. "What will happen? I understand how intercourse occurs, of course, I just am not sure what leads up to it."

Anne Seymour's head lolled to one side. "Oh, there will be much kissing, and – has he put his tongue in your mouth?" Jane shook her head. "Well, he will. It will feel odd at first, but if you relax, you will like it. He will want to stroke your body and find its curves. His fingers will trace you, and before too long, he will strip you bare and you will find yourself on your back in his bed."

Brown eyes riveted on Anne's face. Jane inched her chair closer. "And then?" she whispered.

"I cannot be sure, but eventually he will remove his clothes as well, and the two of you will be naked beneath the bedcovers. If you feel exposed, ask him to douse the candles. He will be lost in rapture for you, almost as though he were intoxicated. He will probably want to put his mouth on you in places you don't expect. His tongue will find its way, warm and wet, over your skin."

Jane's brow wrinkled. "Where?" she asked baldly.

Anne Seymour gave a little shrug. "No one can be certain, but some men like to taste between a woman's legs."

More blonde curls fell over Jane's shoulder as they dropped. Jane's mouth fell open. "Between my legs?" Anne could have sworn that Jane squeezed her knees closer together beneath her skirts.

Holding her palms up in surrender, the brunette shrugged again. "It is possible. I say this only to prepare you for what may happen. The king has had many women, and it is certainly feasible that he enjoys that activity."

"He would kiss me there, then?"

Anne Seymour kept the smirk from her face with practiced steadiness of mind. She could not let Jane know how she was enjoying this conversation. "Kiss you, caress you, use his tongue. In the same way that he might use his tongue while kissing your mouth."

Jane seemed to be panting ever so slightly. "And is it," she cleared her throat and lowered her voice, "is it pleasurable?"

"Jane, believe me when I say this." Anne Seymour paused for effect, licking her lips while she thought how best to phrase it. "There is no better sensation in existence."

The blonde nonetheless looked anxious as she bit her lip. "How will I know if he wants to do this?"

"Pay no heed to that. He will simply move you, or whisper to you."

"I worry a little," Jane admitted, her cheeks flushed an intense pink, "about appealing to him in bed. I know not what noises to make, nor how to interact with him physically. You are right, Anne, he has had many women. I want to please him and make him glad he honours me with the title of wife."

"He will expect nothing of you. He appreciates your virginity and values your purity. You won't be cold? That is not what you fear?"

Jane nodded. "Anne, you see how I live. Before a few months ago, a man had barely touched my hand, much less pulled me on his lap and kissed my lips. Where could I expect to learn warmth? My life is cold," she hissed in frustration.

Anne sighed, nodding in understanding. "I can imagine how you feel. If you perceive that it will be a cold or frightening affair, so it will be. But you can take measures to prepare yourself, if you think it would help."

"Yes," Jane whispered breathlessly, bringing her chair closer still. "Yes, tell me. What can I do?"

Anne looked around furtively, then leaned in close. "The best way to prepare yourself to lose your maidenhead with the king is to wait until you are alone at night and pretend it is happening already. Don't look like that, I said when you are alone. When you are alone in your nightshift like you will be on your wedding night, lie down on your back under your coverings and pretend your lord is there with you, his body covering yours, his hands, his mouth, all there to please you. Imagine the greatest pleasure, then close your eyes and imagine him giving it to you." She held her sister-in-law's gaze, their faces two hand-lengths apart. Jane looked enraptured. "When you know you are truly alone, pull your nightshift up over your hips, so at least your legs are naked. Practice spreading your legs as though the king knelt in front of you. Slide your knees up on the mattress on either side of you. Trace the curve of your inner thigh with your palm. Take a few fingers and graze the flesh that the king will be the first to touch."

"I cannot do that," Jane pulled back, scandalized.

"You can, and you should," Anne said firmly. She held up a hand. "Just run two fingers up your inner thigh, and gently touch your secret parts. It is no sin, only self-preparation to become more comfortable so that you can better please your husband when the moment comes."

"What if I do it incorrectly?"

"You won't. You will sense what feels right."

"Will he be able to tell if I have engaged in this… behaviour? What if he finds out somehow and thinks I am spoilt?"

Anne Seymour shook her head vehemently. "Impossible. He will not know. And, Jane…" she took a pause and pulled back. "No, never mind."

Jane sat forward, visibly short of breath now. "No, tell me. I've come this far. I want to be a true wife to the king. What else have you to say?"

"This is a secret that women hardly ever speak, so you mustn't repeat it." Jane nodded in assent. "The truth is, men lie back at night and visualize some of these same things. Not that it will ever need to come to this, but the king would never be angry at the thought of you touching yourself. In fact, the idea would serve to stir his desire even further. If you were to lie before him and let him watch that, I think he would weep with lust. Not that I am suggesting you ever do so," Anne added hastily, "for I am not. But I want you to be aware that, even for someone as pious and virginal as you are, there are unique ways to please even the most experienced of men. The knowledge that you are capable of all these things is something to keep in mind. It will help you feel more comfortable when the moment arrives."

Jane nodded, speechless. She found her voice after several moments. "I will try what you recommend, when I am alone in my bed tonight. I will just…" she nodded, staring into space.

"Just fingertips," Anne Seymour whispered, leaning in close again. "Start at your face, trace the lines of your face, you know those well." Two fingers made their way to Jane's temple, trailed down over her cheekbone and traced her jaw, skimming over her earlobe. "Two fingertips, that's all you need. Let them roam." Her own fingers grazed slowly over the skin of Jane's neck. Jane held perfectly still, save for the slightest tilting of the head, exposing her neck. Almost in spite of herself, she closed her eyes. "But already when your fingers are here," Anne instructed, "be thinking of what the king might be doing to you if he were with you." Anne paused, looking over Jane's face, and exhaled ever so slightly against Jane's neck. Jane shivered, and Anne smiled to herself. Her fingers slid lightly over Jane's shoulder and down her arm, to her hands which were folded in her lap. "Think of how you could enjoy yourself. Does that seem like something you are willing to do, so that you can please your husband?"

"Yes," Jane whispered. Her eyes opened.

"Good." Anne got to her feet, smiling down at her sister-in-law. "I'll leave you to your embroidery. I think you can pick up where things left off."

The ambiguous statement hung in the air. Jane watched as Anne Seymour turned and glided from the room.

"Well?" Edward Seymour raised his eyebrows as his wife entered their bedchamber a short time later.

"It was very successful," Anne Seymour nodded. She stepped out of her shoes.

Edward smiled and drew her against his chest, cupping her face in both hands and leaning down to kiss her. His tongue pushed into her mouth and he groaned immediately. "You are useful, wife."

Anne Seymour smiled back. Edward had recently discovered her value as a womanly influence on Jane, and seemed to have realized that his wife had a functioning mind and perceptive nature. Their interactions had been markedly better, such that she worried he might cool toward her again when they no longer had an immediate goal of the caliber of Jane's queenship. _I have a somewhat uncomfortable proposition for you, _he had said to her over breakfast that morning. _I would like you to prepare Jane mentally for the physical requirements of marriage to the king. Sense dictates that she will be fine, but a little feminine encouragement might help her grow into a woman ready for that experience._ He said it all in one breath as he poured sweet wine, Anne's favourite, for both of them.

_You want me to talk to your sister about the act?_

_I want you to plant in her the seeds that will inspire her to think about it herself._

She had cleared her throat. _All right, I shall do my best. But if I am to spend a half hour whispering about what happens between a husband and wife, I shall require some attention from you directly after._

Her husband's handsome face smirked as he handed her goblet over. _Tell me what hour this afternoon and I will be waiting when you get back._

"What did you talk about?" he whispered in her ear as he unlaced her stomacher and untied her skirts.

Anne Seymour shrugged. "Losing one's maidenhood."

"I hope you didn't scare the girl." Edward's fingers trailed over his wife's naked torso, rubbing at the ridges her tightly-laced bodice had left. He shed his jacket and peeled off his hose. Anne let him deposit her on the bed. Edward liked to be in charge.

"Not at all," Anne shook her head. Edward lifted one of her legs and untied the garter ribbon. "Oh, but I did not mention the peeling of the stockings," she fretted playfully.

"Shame. We may have to do this again." Both stockings sailed across the room behind him. He leaned over to kiss her lips. "What did you tell her?"

"Womanly things," Anne Seymour murmured as her husband kissed his way down her neck, one hand sliding up from her knee. "Cunnilingus."

Edward straightened. "Stop it."

"She has a right to know." His jaw dropped, and she thought how much physical similarity there was between the siblings. "Edward, you should have seen her face when I told her it was the greatest pleasure a woman could imagine. I thought she might bolt for Henry's bedchamber then and there. It was good to discuss the act; she asked questions, I made suggestions. She will not misstep, but where before she feared it, now I think she will come to desire it."

"God help us." Edward shook his head with a rueful smile. "I should have instructed you better."

Anne shrugged. "I would have done it anyway."

"What else?" Edward dropped back on top of her and kissed each nipple.

"I suggested she explore her body a little, at night when she is alone. Small things. She was afraid she would look foolish to Henry, so I advised her to practice spreading her legs."

Her husband nodded in agreement. "Fair enough. And do you practice spreading your legs?"

"Sometimes. But I prefer when you do it for me."

A palm covered each knee, opening her thighs before him. Unlike her virginal sister-in-law, Anne Seymour had no difficulty baring herself before her husband in the bright sunlight of midday. She showed Edward two fingers, let them graze along her secret parts, and then touched them to his lips. He licked at the trace of her. "Cunnilingus? Was that necessary?" he chuckled again. His smiles had begun to reach his eyes lately. Only for her.

Anne often wondered if she was at all like his first wife. As her first husband, Edward had no predecessor, but he loathed his former wife. They had married only a year and a half before, but it seemed to only have occurred to Edward recently that he was married to a new woman, not a different-looking version of the one who had betrayed him.

"I certainly think so," she whispered as he lowered his mouth to her.

vi.

When he came to Henry, Cromwell found the king sitting at the head of the great table where the Council met. "Majesty." He bowed.

"Sit, Cromwell. Sit. Tell me." Henry swallowed. "Tell me what you've found."

Henry had pulled out a chair for him. He took it, placing his dossier on the table. "As a result of the various interviews-"

"Don't tell me like a lawyer. Don't speak to me like a minister. Not now, Cromwell." The fear was evident in Henry's voice. He was practically grinding his teeth. "Treat me like a man. Like a friend. This is not a treaty or a trade agreement. It's my wife."

Cromwell nodded, his ears burning at the acknowledgement of Anne as Henry's wife.

"What have you found? Who has been fucking her? Mark Smeaton. Who else?"

"Henry Norris."

Henry's mouth opened slightly. This was why he had led with this one. It would shock Henry, hurt him; in his sense of betrayal, the king would accept and damn every other man Cromwell put forth. It was easy to convince him of a base person, a musician, but with that foundation he could believe the crime of his chief gentleman, and after these first two, all Cromwell needed to do was continue to name names. Henry stared at him. Blinked. "Norris?"

Cromwell nodded gravely. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"No, it cannot be so," Henry insisted, shaking his head vigourously. "It cannot. Norris is the chief gentleman, Cromwell, a true courtier. He would never betray me thus."

"I have it from his betrothed, as well as supporting testimony from other members of the queen's bedchamber." Cromwell's palm hovered over the table, and his five fingertips made delicate contact with his leather dossier.

Henry did not even glance at the dossier. His head dropped into his hands. "He's my friend, Cromwell," the king rasped, choking back a tearless sob. "How could one man do such a thing to a man who is his friend?" Blue eyes sought green ones. Henry wiped his cheeks. Cromwell wondered vaguely if he and the king could be considered friends.

"It seems he has forgotten himself, my lord," Cromwell said softly.

"How?" The rings that lined the royal fingers rippled as Henry bunched his hands tightly into his hair. "How could a man violate such a – a friendship is like a vow," Henry whispered. _Like marriage?_ Cromwell asked him silently.

Cromwell paused a moment to control himself enough that he could speak without a hint of irony. "Not all men take their vows as seriously as you do, Your Majesty."

"But I have known him for years," Henry protested feebly. "Why would he do this to me? It is the ultimate betrayal. To seduce my wife…"

Cromwell straightened up in alarm. He could not have Henry blaming the men and not Anne. He had not expected that Henry would phrase it that way. Anne would be removed either way, for Henry had long since tired of her, but Cromwell could not imagine how he, himself, could go on living, knowing that out on the horizon lived a scorned, unmarried, and technically free, Anne Boleyn. The image of the bookcase in the abbey library came back to him. He wondered what colour stockings nuns wore. Always black? "Majesty, the details of the encounters have not been fully divulged yet – it is impossible to say who persuaded whom into bed at this point."

"It matters not at all," Henry sniffed, forcing himself upright. He leaned back in his chair. Cromwell thought how ugly rage and despair were on Henry's face. "Who else? Who else has been spilling their seed in her?"

"Francis Weston."

"Somehow that does not surprise me," Henry sneered. "A whoremongerer and a whore. They are a perfect match. He is young, though. He could have any woman he desires."

He watched as the king turned it over in his mind, asking himself why, why a courtier so young and virile would want a queen ten years his senior. Henry turned between finding Anne magnetic and revolting, and it was any man's guess what he felt about her today. Cromwell cleared his throat, ready to cast the first drop of dye he had planned to use to colour this situation. "Majesty, you yourself are perceptive to the generational differences in your court. The young men today behave like children, different than when Your Majesty was twenty years of age. They are not blessed with the wisdom that you enjoyed in youth. One must excuse them in that sense for, as Your Majesty well knows, they were not preparing themselves to rule a kingdom." Henry nodded along, looking reluctant, as if to say, _yes, that is true, Cromwell, and what a shame, it is almost as though I have set too good an example._ Cromwell continued spinning the golden thread that his master so needed at the moment – that they both needed, really, in order to get to the conclusion of this whole affair. "But it seems that in a court led by a man so singular as Your Majesty is, the men of the next generation have fallen to idle play and tactless competition. Their sense of honour and courtly etiquette is lacking. Mark Smeaton is, of course, an example of this. One could almost excuse him on the basis of his low breeding-"

"No." Henry shook his head, holding up an index finger. "No, Cromwell, I will not let you make excuses for these men. If you will forgive me, you come from as base a background possible, despite the remarkable training and education that you procured for yourself. You are not noble. Yet you serve me with more honour, humility, and loyalty than I think I have ever encountered from any other living creature. You may not excuse Mark Smeaton on that basis, for on that basis you would be able to absolve yourself of similar conduct, which we both know is behaviour in which you would never engage. You are fair, my lord, but do not overreach your generosity."

Cromwell paused, letting the flood of compliments wash over him. They cleansed him, refreshed him, and yet left him dirty, like washing with someone else's bathwater. A plume of satisfaction settled in his chest: ecstasy. All that was left was to beat it home. He palmed the handle of his metaphorical hammer. "Yes, sire. Their conduct has no absolution. They are young, but of age to know the laws of nature. Their arrogance and folly cannot be excused in any way."

"Francis Weston," Henry mused, as if he was not listening to Cromwell at all. "What a waste. His father is a great man. Loyal. Honourable. He would never countenance such behaviour." He shook his head, refocused on his secretary. "If only all children did their parents' bidding, eh?"

"If only the queen followed her father's example of service to the crown," Cromwell added.

"Boleyn." Henry chuckled. "We will figure him out later. Who else?"

"Sir William Brereton."

Henry looked disgusted – another old friend and trusted servant. "You are sure?"

"Certain, sire. It has only happened a few times," Cromwell added, as though he was trying to temper it. "He is not at court as much as the others."

"He always was a reckless man. Always took what he wanted. A useful strategy in holding affairs together in Wales, but I am not utterly surprised. Brereton has always done what served him best. Duty and respect never weighed heavily in his decisions." Henry seethed, his chest rising and falling deeply, as he stared off into the distance. "Any others?"

This was the perfect moment to crystallize Henry's disgust with his wife, but Cromwell had told himself he would wait to impugn Lord Rochford, wait for the moment, wait to devise his angle. He could do more with a charge of incest than tack it onto a list. He met the king's eyes and shook his head. "No, sire."

"And you've got testimony of all?"

"Yes, Majesty, but of the men I have only questioned Smeaton. Begging Your Majesty's pardon. I thought it would be acceptable to take him into custody as a preemptive measure. I thought to use his confession as a bargaining tool."

"Has he confessed?"

Cromwell licked his lips, communicating to Henry his own disgust with Smeaton's base background. "He weeps, hotly proclaims his innocence, and uses abusive language toward Your Majesty."

Henry grimaced. "Weeps?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Have you racked him?"

He shook his head. "Not a hair of his head has been plucked. He descended into tears in the first half hour of questioning. I was up with him through the night. Half the time, I swear, my lord, I was consoling rather than interrogating him."

"By God, he is not a gentleman. Weeping for no reason. Dishonouring his sovereign lord. What are these men doing at my court? How have I let this happen? Mongrels. Saving you, of course, Cromwell," Henry made a placatory gesture.

"When would you like me to begin interviewing the others?" Cromwell skimmed over this praise. "I think it would be best to do it all at once. Perhaps I should finish with Smeaton first."

The king waved a hand, his lips curled into a snarl. "Have at it, Cromwell. Do your best. Do your worst. Get it from him, and take care of the rest. I cannot bear to be disgraced so."

"I will bring it forth, sire, I promise you."

"Henry Norris." Blue eyes closed as if against the memories. "I have known him since boyhood. He and Charles and I used to play at jousting together. When Catherine…" Henry swallowed hard and looked up. "Cromwell, when you get your hands on Norris, you make him talk. Scorch his fingers if you have to. I want to know how he could do this to me. Tell him I loved him, tell him I regret ever loving him, ever giving him the grace of my favour. Tell him I hope he enjoyed pushing himself inside my wife, for it is the last pleasure he will ever know. The others are fools, they are wasters, shameful creatures. They are not even real men." Henry's face was eerily calm, but his nostrils flared and his eyes glowed with tears as he stared into the space above the Council table. "Norris is different. He has shared my joys, my disappointments. It's akin to you coming in here to tell me that Brandon has had her."

"The Duke of Suffolk is a loyal servant of Your Majesty."

"So was Norris," Henry shook his head. "I feel I hardly know who to trust. I cannot see how he would choose the temporary pleasure of my wife over decades of friendship. I thought I understood the men closest to me. I see now that I have misunderstood Norris. He is as much an urchin as the others. For a man of such breeding. What a fucking waste. You get the truth out of him, Cromwell. I demand an explanation. Ask him how he could do this to his friend, don't use the word king, ask how he could do this to his friend who loved him. Ask him how he could betray his country. Ask him if Anne's cunt was worth it. Make him talk. Make him grovel. Make him get on his knees in front of you," Henry's face lit with a chuckle, "and beg your forgiveness. My chief gentleman begging the forgiveness of the boy from Stepney. Make sure you have some witnesses for that, Crom, and remember it well, for when this is all through, I will want to hear how it felt. The dog will never see my face again, so I will have to make do with your account of it. Ruin the man."

There was a long pause while Cromwell waited to see if Henry was through. "Yes, Majesty." What else was one supposed to say to a charge like that?

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Henry dismissed him. In a faraway voice as Cromwell strode the length of the room, Henry called out, "I want to know every detail, every nuance." He did not nod, did not turn. He could tell by the king's voice that he was staring into space, imagining, filling his own mind with the images that Cromwell had feared he would have to put there for him. Henry was not giving him an instruction. Henry was not even really talking to him. Henry was a man, and as a man who has just learnt that his wife has been moaning underneath a handful of other men, Cromwell suspected that Henry was reliving every time he had made love to Anne, and replacing his own face and body with that of his courtiers, Smeaton's untamed curls, Norris's perfectly shaven chin, Brereton's severely broad shoulders, Weston's delicate cheekbones and perfumed neck. Henry was asking himself where he'd gone wrong, what caused his wife to turn from him, the most virile man in his kingdom, and let this succession of various men climb on top of her, enjoy her, have the privilege of pleasuring the Queen of England. Cromwell wondered if Henry had ever thought of the emotional effects of his own infidelity on his wife. But he probably had not. None of his concerns were for the wives of the adulterers; Henry cared not about the integrity of his courtiers, but rather about their choice of partners. He, Cromwell, could almost see it, could almost picture Anne underneath other men. He did not need to believe it. He had experienced her. The other men did not matter. He did not need their true confessions. He only needed Henry to believe it of them. Henry had the names, and within that framework Cromwell would build the scaffold. So he left the king brooding, halfway between grief and rage, to construct his own images of Anne's adultery.

vii.

Late Afternoon

"What is the matter with you lately?"

Anne regarded her brother with a cool glance, more a sideways flick of eyelashes than anything else. She turned away, resuming her aimless gazing out the window. "George, d'you remember when Thomas Wyatt pledged to cast off his wife for me?"

Alarm flashed across George's face. "Keep your voice down-"

"My ladies can hardly stand to be near me," Anne spat out from her seemingly relaxed position. She raised her voice. "And in any event, they've abandoned their vows to serve me, in thought and deed if not in word."

"Stop it," George insisted, scandalized. "Have you gone mad?"

She leaned her head back against the wall behind her, exposing the vulnerable skin of her long neck. Her eyes slid closed. "Maybe a little."

George felt panic seize him. He swallowed, took a step toward her. "Anne…"

"Remember? Wyatt appeared in our courtyard at dawn to declare his intentions. He said he would rather be gibbeted than spend one more day in the shadow of hidden love. He brought me a ring, which he had wrenched from his wife's finger."

"You would not come down," George said softly.

"No, I stayed upstairs. I was ill over it. His desperation, all his grasping and begging, God, it had grown tiresome." Anne smoothed her hair behind one ear. "Remember how we mimicked him?"

Her brother smiled and moved closer, lifting her feet and taking their place on the window seat. He placed them in his lap when he sat down. "I remember. You would bury your face in your sleeves and groan whenever his name was mentioned. You even begged Mary to seduce him, to take the pressure off you."

"Mary." Anne smiled sadly. "Why did we laugh so at him, at Wyatt? At his efforts?"

"They were ridiculous, inappropriate." George chuckled.

"No. No, it was because it would never have worked. I would never have succumbed to him. He could not have talked me into bed." Her eyes slid from George's face to the scene outside her window. "He had lost. He had lost, and everyone knew it but him. We all knew it, and yet he kept it up, the frenzied love letters and all the beautiful words. It was funny. Poor man. And how many years has it been? And we all remember it. Even he does. The man has no shame, of course, but he remembers it well. In some ways he never accepted it, I think."

"He gets lost in you," George agreed. "It is not meet or seemly."

Anne shrugged. "Wyatt is not meet or seemly. Yet I marvel that he could have loved me so long and so hard, and that his love is yet sustained. What do you think, if I had let him, I mean consented and let him take me to his bed?"

George thought for a moment. "I cannot picture it. You would not have done so, and if you had, you would not be you."

"But in a moment of weakness," Anne's eyes trailed back and forth as she scanned the horizon through the scrubbed glass panes, "I think if he had had me, that would have been that. I cannot see that his love would have withstood consummation. It is the nature of men."

"We can never know. It did not happen thus. And you took the moral path, and maintained it for years, to this day." He palmed her foot absently. "You should be proud of yourself."

"Look where it's gotten me."

"Queen of England. Not inadequate."

Anne rolled her head against the window, staring at her brother flatly. "George, look around you. I am not sure those three words, _Queen of England_, describe my present state thoroughly."

"You will be fine. It will be fine. You shall see," George insisted, nodding along as he spoke, looking more eager to convince himself than anything else. "Your race is not run yet."

"I am through running, George, I ran for seven years. I ran for seven years while Henry chased me."

"Anne, you are my sister. I will protect you. No harm shall come to you so long as I live, and you've no need to fear. Things are difficult now. They will mend themselves. You will see."

She turned her face back into the sunlight and closed her eyes. "You should hear yourself talk, George, and compare your declarations to those of Wyatt. The delusions are the same. He would never achieve victory, but he could not accept it. Now we stand in his position. We've lost, George," Anne said steadily, eyes still closed, an unconscious prophetess. "The race is over, no need to run at all. I lost it for us, but no matter, it's lost. We've lost and everyone knows it but us."

"No," George insisted, vehement. "No, you mustn't lose hope-"

"It is not hope, it is not faith. It is not my will, but the Lord's that will be done. It remains to me to make the best of the fortune that is dealt to me."

There was a long silence, and then with rapid movements George threw her feet away from his lap. "I will not sit by and let you prattle thus. It is utter nonsense."

"It is not nonsense-"

He leant over her, grabbing her by the shoulders, and lifted her from the window panes. "It is rubbish, idiocy, Anne, I won't have it. Get yourself together; since when were you so dim?"

She met his eyes with that same half-lidded gaze, calm and serene to the point of abnormality. She shook her head. "You don't understand…"

"I'm not listening to this." George released her with a disgusted expression. "You are not yourself. No wonder your husband is uninterested in you; who would want to spend time with such a woman?"

Anne swallowed the insult as her brother turned on his heel. "George, I love you," she said softly. She made no effort to go after him.

"I love my sister. I've no idea who you are," he threw over his shoulder, a childish insult that reminded her of his sulky nature in adolescence. "You're nothing but a fool."

He left the door open behind him, anticipating that she would pursue him; they rarely failed to resolve their disagreements. Anne righted herself in the window seat and adjusted her forehead against the glass, stretching her feet out as she had before he had come. "I am a fool," Anne agreed, her voice barely above a hum. "But so are you. We've lost, my brother, and everyone knows it."

She knew he would not come back. He wanted an apology, a reversion to the high-handed, fiery sister he knew. She could not give him that. She surveyed the horizon once again, a hollow ache enveloping her organs. She wondered if this was what Thomas Wyatt felt, if this was the state she had kept him in for these past fifteen years. She thought she might owe him an apology.

**UP NEXT:**

Mrs. Lockton caught his eye. "You may want to have a rest from your papers and take in the mass, sir."

Cromwell glanced up in surprise, his forehead wrinkling. "Begging your pardon?"

"Not my place to command you," she shrugged, "but it's May Day. A court mass. I imagine many of the people who've been in and out of these rooms in the past week will be there. All those souls in one chapel, might be worth the hour it will cost you."

He shot her a wry smile. "So many vulnerable souls, so many calculated expressions."

She handed the wine goblet directly to him, gesturing that he should drink up. "And all clad in black, too. You'll blend right in, my lord."


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N: hello, happy October! Here's a shorter chapter – well, shorter than last time –for your reading pleasure. Here we have the Anne/Henry scene in the garden, and the only Anne/Elizabeth in the whole story, plus a whole lot more Seymour.**

**Guys, I am now on TUMBLR! That's right. Look at me go. Hello, 21****st**** century. (I am 23, so there's no excuse for me being so lazy with media.) Let's connect if any of you are there! My name is "TudorStacks."**

**Rest in peace legendary Tudor historian, Eric Ives. His study of Anne Boleyn remains the definitive biography of her, and it was the first serious book I read on her years ago; Professor Ives was extremely gracious (answered my annoying fan letter with a friendly and welcoming message) as well as a gifted and passionate scholar. The Tudor community has sustained a great loss.**

**Alyson, thank you so much for your reviews! I'm glad my irony and the darkness of the story is coming through well. We'll see how he deals with the incest shortly, but for now Cromwell really is focused on what's going to handle the situation most efficiently and in the manner that the king requires it be handled. As for the historical Lady Rochford, I am of the opinion that she and her husband/sister-in-law were on wonderful terms, and somehow had a falling out which led to the disloyalty. It's just a theory, but that seems most realistic to me. I am also happy to hear that you're liking my wavering, confused Cromwell. Jane we can't pin down, and honestly I don't plan on forcing her into some character description that I don't agree with, so I am working instead to draw out the characterizations of her siblings and use that as the best tool for showcasing her personality/actions. I like that she remains a little bit mysterious. One of my life goals is to figure out what I think of her and write historical fiction about her family dynamic. I find internal family politics fascinating. And although I feel like this whole story is a downer (can't be helped, lol), there will be lots of up-and-down moments from here. My writing style has evolved immensely and I am happy with where this is going. Hope you enjoy this chapter and thank you for your continued support! =)**

**Anna, I agree with you totally. I think the slowing down effect mostly had to do with how I was playing with the sequencing, which was a mistake, but better that I make it here than elsewhere. =) Also, I am still working through this tendency I have to think I must write and flush out EVERY nuance/scene/storyline/event, which just isn't true. I'm hoping to be able to pick and choose things from here on out, and not feel guilty or that I'm leaving my readers hanging. I am glad you liked my Anne Stanhope/Edward Seymour. I think she has a nice fire to her on the show, and I find her alluring so wanted to write her that way. And I know, poor Wyatt! Haven't quite decided how I'm going to handle him yet… but I can promise I won't be using that God-awful version of the "Circa Regna Tonat" poem that they had on the season 2 finale. Facepalm.**

**Rae, I'm honored to be your escape from homework! Posting this on (effectively) a Monday, perhaps it will enable some more procrastination? I'm so glad you liked the scene between the ladies; I always like to try something new and different, and that was definitely a first for me. YES Wolf Hall is AMAZING, both Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, have won the Man Booker Prize for fiction – BUTB just won last week! Coincidentally, I was at the Frick Collection in NYC the day the prize was presented in London, and took a long staring session at Holbein's portrait of Cromwell hanging there (More is on the other side of the fireplace). It was a wonderful Cromwell sort of day! They're also adapting the series, which has one more book yet, into a miniseries on BBC as well as a play. Anyway, yes, I think the torturing scenes on "The Tudors" were done for a reason, and it was a good one – to sensationalize it and get ratings – but I just don't see a need for that. Particularly in my story, where I set the rules. To answer your question re: the end of the story, yes, it will continue on past Anne's execution, but in a brief, sporadic, episodic fashion written with a very different style. Most of the loose ends of the story will be tied up there. I've started to write that part as well as others. Enjoy this chapter – let me know what you think =)**

2 May

i.

Dawn

Anne stared up toward the ceiling, both palms spread flat across her clenched lower stomach. Her mouth was watering, that awful lurking type of watering that begins in the throat and pours hot, sour saliva over the tongue. She prayed silently, quickly. She swallowed frequently.

No use. Within a quarter hour of awakening to deep, dull pains in her abdomen, Anne pitched herself out of bed and gripped the chamber pot, dragging it across the stone floor toward her as she began to gag. Her stomach heaved over and over, the force so foreign and sudden that her ribs were sore on the first thrust, before she vomited. There was nothing in her stomach. Yellow bile poured out her nose and mouth in spurts as the queen half-moaned, half-sniffled, hunched over on her bedchamber floor.

When the retching subsided into eerie calm, Anne wiped her nose and mouth and took a few moments to regain her strength. She leant against the wall, feet splayed out, doll-like. She gazed longingly at the warm coverings of her bed, at her dressing robe which tantalized from an armlength too far away. Why were the mornings so cold this year?

Anne looked down at her midsection, unrecognizable in the swathe of thick white cotton. She let out a deep, shuddering breath and curled one arm around herself. She lifted her face and gazed into the pale haze of dawn as it birthed a new day. First light.

ii.

Cromwell's eyes flicked open effortlessly at first light, as though someone had put their hands on him and eased him from slumber.

In the outer chambers, a long dispatch in Riche's handwriting awaited him. The wax was splotched unceremoniously and had what appeared to be a clumsy knuckleprint in the middle, right where the upper edge met the lower leaf. Cromwell split the flaps with one finger, his other hand fumbling for a goblet. He was starving.

Surprise registered on his face when Mrs. Lockton glided through the door with a tray in her hand. Steam rose from more than one spot on the tray. "Morning, sir," she greeted him with a cheery smile, busting past.

Cromwell looked from her to the paper and back to her. Helplessly, he followed her down the hallway toward his office. "What-" he spluttered. "It's so early."

"Thought you might be up." She nudged his office door open with one knee. He held it out of her way, still gaping after her.

"How long have _you_ been up?" he demanded. It was barely half past five.

"Not long," she breezed, then gestured at the tray. "Boiled chicken with eggs, warmed apple tart, hot cider."

The aromas were already wafting to him. "It smells delicious. So much cider lately?"

"Apples came early this year. Try and eat it all, and before it gets cold. It's a chilly morning." She produced a fresh napkin from her apron and placed it on the tray.

"All this sugar," Cromwell teased as he took his seat at his desk.

"Can't get you to eat enough any other way," Mrs. Lockton chided back as she retreated. "And you could use a little extra fat on you."

He dug his gilt fork, a recent gift from Stephen Vaughan, into the fluffy eggs. He speared a piece of chicken in the same bite. As he devoured the breakfast that his maid had apparently either risen early enough to order, or had the forethought of ordering last night, he thought that she was right: he did not eat well enough. Perhaps he should consider marrying again. A wife would look after him thus. His eyes traveled to the annulment statutes he had been studying last night, trying to find the chink in marriage law that would best suit Henry. "Mmm," Cromwell sighed as he sipped the hot cider, cinnamon colliding with flaky apple tart. If only he could just marry Mrs. Lockton.

iii.

Morning

"Should Lissie not be here?" Tom examined the embroidery on the front of his doublet for the dozenth time.

"You try to control her," Edward snapped. "I've done my best."

"But not your worst," Anne Seymour singsonged as her fingers walked mindlessly over the drawer of earrings her maid had brought.

Edward snorted. "Maybe I should send you in to reinforce me."

His wife shot him a look, cheeks glowing in the pale early morning. She sniffled against the cold. "One at a time, Edward."

Jane joined them as Anne stretched her neck to and fro before a mirror mounted on the wall. She could not decide which earrings would suit better, so she had put a different one in each ear. "I overslept," Jane said apologetically. She kissed both her brothers hello.

"Seems the morning did, too." Tom scratched at his clean-shaven jaw. "Hasn't managed to creep past dawn yet."

"Have you eaten?" Edward's eyes scanned his sister's figure, up and down, like a farmer might examine a cow at market.

"Not hungry." Jane's voice was barely above a whisper, as though she feared disturbing the morning.

Edward signaled Anne's maid back. "Would you bring the lady something to eat?" He threw Jane a warning glance. "Can't have you losing weight. You must be healthy and radiant, not frail and thin like…" he shook the comparison off. "Three meals a day, Jane."

"So my appetite is no longer mine, then?" Jane asked in that same soft voice. The words pierced the air like an arrow with a wire attached to the tail; the arrow lodged in the wall across the room from Jane, leaving the thin wire to dissect the room. Tom wheeled around, two lanky steps rotating him from the windowpane to face his sister. Anne turned her head only, looking over her shoulder in surprise. She eyed her husband, who stayed still. Several moments passed.

"Of course it's yours." Edward smiled at Jane.

"I say I am not hungry," Jane responded steadily, her fingers drawing into a graceful knot at the narrowest point of her waist, "and you order me food."

"I mean to look after your well-being."

Jane blinked. "You think it does me good to force breakfast upon me?"

Edward drew a great breath through his nose, eyes downcast in thought. He turned to Anne's maid, who had paused on the threshold. "Never mind. The lady is not hungry."

A hint of a smirk appeared on Jane's serene face. She reached up to adjust her veil. "Anne, would you help?"

Anne Seymour tested with her fingertips the earrings she had chosen and made her way to Jane. "Over your face?"

"May as well," Jane replied lightly. The plain, sheer black veil was edged in scalloped black lace. It parted in the middle, revealing the front of Jane's face and making it appear crested, almost like a funeral mask. Her black partlet, trimmed in the same, revealed a triangular strip of her chest.

When they left for mass, Jane took Tom's arm. Edward fell into step behind her as they filed through the narrow doorway of the Seymour receiving chamber.

"Edward," Jane said suddenly, turning her head. He could see her nose and only one eye, as the veil fell over half of her face.

"Yes?" He ran his fingers lightly over the new feather in his hat, a gift from Eustace Chapuys. He intended to doff his cap to the ambassador today. No doubt the Boleyns would snub him.

"I was hungry."

Edward's pace checked. "Why did you refuse to eat?"

"Practicing," Jane responded coolly, but a familiar smile crept onto her face. "I imagine I should at least know how to give an order." With a triumphant glance, Jane tightened her grip on Tom's elbow as they entered the palace corridor.

Edward gleamed back. "Impressive."

"A new woman, Edward, you shall see." Jane held out her free arm to him, and he closed in on her other side.

Nodding, Edward twisted mid-step to find Anne Seymour. "Wife." He beckoned her forward, drew her close. His lips found her ear. "Well done."

She pulled her own veil forward to hide her smile and accepted Edward's arm, draping her forearm over his. Four people who could call themselves Seymour formed a solid, moving wall. Courtiers and servants passing in the opposite direction moved to the side, and several nodded deference. Anne looked past Edward. "Jane, you slept well?"

Jane's black scalloped lace bobbed with each stride, and in one bounce Anne thought she saw a dimpled smile appear on Jane's cheek, but by the next, it was gone. "Very satisfactorily, thank you."

Anne and Edward exchanged an expressionless glance. There was a surety in Jane's step that had not been there before. When they entered the chapel royal, Jane's arms slithered out from her brothers' grips, and she moved forward at the head of the family without so much as a peek at either male. There was a moment of pause between the other three, and Edward moved Anne between himself and Tom. They followed Jane down the aisle, crossed themselves, and sat where she did.

Just as the priest finished his opening monologue in Latin, an unholy gurgling sound rose from Jane's stomach. Her eyes widened in alarm, hands folded in prayer. Edward, kneeling beside her, stared straight ahead, a gleeful smile enveloping his features. Anne and Tom both looked over. Jane's hands parted; the left one pressed itself to her stomach, while the right one found its way inside her veil and clamped over her mouth. Her eyes squeezed shut as she stifled her laughter into her palm.

iv.

Mrs. Lockton caught his eye. "You may want to have a rest from your papers and take in the mass, sir."

Cromwell glanced up in surprise, his forehead wrinkling. "Begging your pardon?"

"Not my place to command you," she shrugged, "but it's May Day. A court mass. I imagine many of the people who've been in and out of these rooms in the past week will be there. All those souls in one chapel, might be worth the hour it will cost you."

He shot her a wry smile. "So many vulnerable souls, so many calculated expressions."

She handed the wine goblet directly to him, gesturing that he should drink up. "And all clad in black, too. You'll blend right in, my lord."

And so he did, or at least he thought as much, until half the assembled courtiers turned to look at him. So much for a low profile. Jane Seymour inclined her head, her peculiar veil revealing half of her face. Her expression and manner suggested she thought herself intriguing, but Cromwell thought she looked rather like a fish with only one eye showing. Nonetheless, he nodded back. One hand came up, presumably to adjust his collar. He flashed the sapphire ring at her. A soft dimple appeared in her cheek as she turned back toward the front of the church. Edward Seymour's face, fishlike for other reasons, rotated to acknowledge him.

"Make way for the king!" The muffled shout burst into the chapel. Cromwell paused and backed into an empty pew, bowing just a few moments later than the rest of the court as Henry strode in. Slowing as he passed Jane, he swatted at Cromwell's shoulder.

"My lord. Join me."

Cromwell's eyes rolled back and forth in his head while Henry continued up the aisle. He hurried to follow his master and sat in the pew behind him. Henry twisted his head to beckon Cromwell forward. He perched on the edge of the bench. "Majesty?"

"How goes it?" Henry's eyes darted up when the chapel door opened again. The queen was announced, and a pitter-patter of female feet started down the aisle.

Cromwell cleared his throat. "Quickly, sire. I shall make the remainder of the arrests before day's end."

"All of them in the Tower?"

"Unless you'd have me put them elsewhere, my lord."

Henry sniffled, the damp chill of the morning manifesting itself in his dripping and reddened nose. "No. Lock them up. Throw them to the rats." He paused, looking up at his wife as she neared. His gaze seemed to revert inward for a moment, and he refocused on his secretary with some difficulty. "Smeaton?"

"I have not seen him since our first interview. He is kept isolated at Austin Friars. His lutes are confiscated; he is given bread and water."

"He'll break," Henry whispered confidently. "They all will. Swine."

Anne's presence clouded them; were it not so gray in the chapel already, her shadow would have cast itself between them, draping over both men like a black bed sheet. They looked up at her. Her ladies jostled to a halt behind her. The chapel held its breath; Cromwell could almost feel courtiers straining forward behind him.

"Majesty." Cromwell rose to his feet only to bend at the waist. Henry stared at her.

"Master Secretary. Husband, happy May Day." Anne smiled, uncertainly. She looked worse, older, sicklier, every day.

"And you," Henry replied flatly. "Sit, Cromwell." Cromwell sat, feeling rather like a dog. Anne turned away slowly. Her ladies whispered, as ladies will, and a solitary giggle floated up from the group. Cromwell guessed one of the Sheltons. Lissie Seymour was the last to pass, with a shy smile and a slight bow of the head toward him, Cromwell, not the king who was lost in thought. Cromwell averted his eyes to keep from smiling back at the girl. Lissie looked like an angel in the golden light the tapers cast on one half of her body. Her skin glowed, while the queen's looked like marble, cold and dead. He thought that Lissie should be careful not to look too pretty, lest the king want to repeat the sequence he had experienced with the Boleyn sisters. Perhaps he should have a word with Edward.

There would be no jousts today. No maypoles had been decorated. No one had woven a flower garland to crown the May Day Queen. It was the first time that Cromwell could remember where no one had observed the holiday. All the introductory feasting had gone off according to plan, but as dark clouds rolled in and suffocated the court, no one seemed motivated to do anything except brace themselves and ride out the storm.

Cranmer entered to deliver the mass; he had gotten in last night from a sojourn at Cambridge. Heretofore unaware of the situation at court, the archbishop had twisted together several wildflowers and tucked the sprigs into his collar, making a play at fancy. He was plainly baffled at the somber appearance of the congregation that greeted him. Henry jumped to his feet and shook Cranmer's hand, delivering a solid pat on the back, welcoming the cleric back to court and wishing him a happy May Day. Cranmer cast another confused glance around the chapel; had he missed something? He caught Cromwell's eye. The secretary lifted his chin, the opposite of a nod: we'll talk later.

Henry spun from Cranmer, a hard, disingenuous grin on his face. It looked like he had simply sneered, and then drawn his cheeks upward and outward. He flung his arms wide. "Happy May Day!" his voice boomed and echoed around the desolate church. His courtiers responded with cheer, returning the wishes and shouting praise for their king. Henry looked over at the opposite bench, and Cromwell's heart skipped a beat as he wondered if the king's eye had found a taste for Lissie. But from the expression – skeptical, disgusted, addicted – it was clear whom Henry was observing. The king flopped unceremoniously back into his spot in the empty front pew. Cranmer raised his hands to begin the service, a confused but tranquil smile on his face, and his eyes drifted shut as he greeted the court.

Cromwell crossed himself along with everyone else, feeling eyes on him and refusing to give anyone the satisfaction of looking their way. Henry jerked around with a conspiratorial smile, pursed his lips as he did when he had something secret to say. Applying his practiced Majesty-I-am-breathless-for-your-conversation face, Cromwell leant forward.

Henry hissed in his ear. "When will you take her?"

He almost succeeded in not blinking at Henry's choice of words. "By sundown tomorrow."

"One last mass." A gruff sound rose and broke in Henry's throat, so low that Cromwell barely heard it over Cranmer's exhortations. "One last night. One last May Day. Then it all falls apart."

"Majesty," Cromwell whispered and bowed his head deeply, unable to inflect the word as well as when he spoke it. He sat back against the wood, exhausted, aware that he was only ankle-deep in this mess yet. Before it was over, he would have submerged himself over his head, nearly drowned, hopefully found his way back to the surface before his lungs burst and he sank far below the surface, never to rise again. He would have to have someone remind him to take a deep breath before he went under. He wondered who in this court would think of him, other than when they needed something from him, or needed his favour and so did something for him. He wondered whether it was worth the struggle, whether all this was worth it. He thought sometimes that he was as unbalanced as Henry. Without meaning to, he turned slightly and looked for the queen. She was staring at him, two heads defiantly upright while the rest of the mass bowed in prayer. Her mouth twisted a little, and the tendons of her neck shifted. His eyes ran down her face to her close-collared black gown, then back up. He turned away and pressed his hands together, not caring enough about the charade to bow his head, not bothering to close his eyes. When he was sure she had turned away, Cromwell glanced back over. The queen's hands were clasped, the tip of her nose resting against the crook of one finger, blue eyes trained at the floor. He forced his gaze away and scrunched his eyes closed. He did not see it, but Anne turned toward him again, readjusting her fingers. She closed her eyes before turning her back to face front.

v.

Afternoon

Amidst the cooing and giggling of her ladies, Anne tried to hold back tears as she watched her daughter toddle and laugh and play. "Mama," Elizabeth whined as her cap dipped over one side of her forehead.

"Oh, sweetheart, come here." She felt her face light up as Elizabeth clutched at her skirts and held still so Anne could fix her hat. She fought the impulse to squeeze her daughter.

Elizabeth was playing merchant today, waddling back and forth between the ladies who sat in a circle on the floor, each waiting her turn to receive a flower from the little princess. Elizabeth presented each lady with a curtsey and a sprig of wildflowers, which had been wilting in her mother's rooms for almost a week now. Anne supposed made her a merchant-master, or merchant-mistress, which was a novel concept.

Then she saw him, a figure in black, a denser black than what others might have worn because he radiated it; black in his posture, the way he held his neck, the angle of his elbows as he stalked in the garden like an animal. Her husband.

Anne perked up, pressing both hands to the glass, unable to believe what she saw. Henry had not strolled in the garden alone in months. This was her chance. She all but fell out of the window seat, jamming her feet back into her shoes. "Begging your pardon, ladies," she excused herself, picking her way through the circle, hardly able to bunch enough of her exceptionally voluminous skirts into her fists to avoid knocking her ladies over. At the outer rim of the circle, Anne spun. "Elizabeth," she said softly, then urgently, "Elizabeth. Come here." She held out her hands.

"Why?" Elizabeth asked, cocking her head to one side. Her arm froze in the act of doling out a handful of near-dead flowers to a grinning Mary Shelton.

"Come, Elizabeth!" Her voice was sharper than she intended. "Come, sweetheart."

Elizabeth reluctantly dropped the flowers and made her way toward her mother. She struggled when Anne picked her up. "Walk," she insisted.

"No, my love, I have to hold you." Anne struggled through her chambers and down the stairs, following Henry's path. She could see him on the path past the far end of the palace, and she hastened up the stairs, breaking out in sweat, ignoring Elizabeth's questions.

When he saw her, he stopped cold in his tracks, then turned away in disgust. His eyes stayed on her face as he spun on his heel to turn his back on her and their child. Her heart broke all over again, for there, in his face, was the man she had loved, and the man who had loved her. "Henry," she implored, "please."

A slight, barely perceptible squaring of the shoulders. The way one would brush off a jokester in the marketplace. Not one's wife. The mother of one's child. Her eyes filled with tears; she picked up the front of her skirts unelegantly and all but ran after him. She had no dignity left anyway. She tightened her arm around Elizabeth, whose grip around her neck slackened at the sight of her father. "Henry. _Please._"

He kept walking.

"For the love you bear our child," she said evenly, aware of the shamelessness of her words, "for the love of Elizabeth, have –"

"You lied to me." He spit the words out darkly, so darkly that Anne faltered. "You've always lied to me."

Anne's nose burned, the way a nose might when one is about to weep. When could he ever have thought that she would have lied to him? She had not been a perfect wife, but she had not lied to him. "No," she insisted feebly, trying to catch up with him. It was a damp day, and she could practically feel the mud staining her new gown. Her skirts were heavy, and Elizabeth was heavy, and Anne berated herself for not having enjoyed those light, beautiful years of her life. She bounced Elizabeth higher on her waistline.

All at once, Henry spun, brandishing one index finger like a blade. She had never seen him look so, not even on their last encounter in his chamber. She stopped short. "You were not a virgin when you married me," he accused, his voice low and smouldering. Incredulity wrinkled Anne's face. A maid she certainly had been, as he had attested when he first pushed himself into her, readjusting, _ah – sweetheart – am I hurting you? – sweet Jesu – I am not certain I have ever felt a true virgin before. _Now his eyes burned into hers. "You were not what you seemed." Anne's mouth opened to protest, but it died as he pushed closer. The anger rolled off him, and Anne scuttled backward, hugging Elizabeth tighter. Elizabeth peered at her father, and then buried her face in Anne's neck. Henry stepped back. His expression was the very picture of disgust. "Your father and your brother arranged everything."

"No!" Anne cried out at his retreating back, breaking into a trot again. How could he think such a thing? After the days and nights they had spent together, walking and lounging, reading aloud and laughing and trading stories of foggy childhood memories? Anne dropped her skirts and wiped her eyes as she caught up to Henry, reaching out for him, declaring, desperately, "I loved you," her mind a blur of the past they'd shared. How could it have come to this? She maneuvered around him, placing a hand on his chest. "I loved you," she told him, looking into his eyes. "And I love you still." There was a waver, an indulgence, in his countenance. She saw it and then it was gone. Letting the last bit of pride slip through her fingers, Anne resigned herself to begging. "Please, after everything we've been to each other, after everything we were." Elizabeth's legs were wrapped around Anne's waist, and the little girl's fear was squeezing the breath out of her mother. Anne realized she should not have subjected her daughter to this. What in God's name had she been thinking? She had hoped to protect herself, appeal to Henry, show him the beautiful life they had created together. But that should not have been worth this, she berated herself as Elizabeth stroked the nape of Anne's neck, the fingers of her other hand digging into Anne's shoulder.

Henry sniffed a little in spite of himself, and she saw that there might be a glimmer of emotion left in him for her.

"Please," she whispered.

He pushed against her, but with only half as much strength as she anticipated. She saw his weakness. She remembered how, in his chamber, she had kissed him, and felt him kiss her back. The sensation as her husband melted against her for that one moment. If she could get him to do so now, she might save her life, save her daughter's inheritance, cause no bloodshed. She closed her eyes, steeling herself, and turned away from him to climb the few steps behind her. God, had Elizabeth gained weight since they walked out into the garden? Perhaps Anne's strength was deserting her. She struggled to the top of the stairs. She turned back to Henry, forcing him to look up at her and trying to present Elizabeth fully before him. He loved his daughter, even if he no longer cared for her mother.

"One more chance." The words needed no accompaniment. "One more."

Out of the corner of her eye, Anne saw Elizabeth's little face scrunch up. Her mouth formed a small 'o,' a toddler's mask of confusion. She gazed at her father. Henry's gaze skipped over Elizabeth entirely. He stared at Anne for a long moment, and with a slight, imperceptible shake of his head, it was over. He started up the steps with rigid movements.

"Henry…"

She tried to reach for him, but he shook her off violently. Anne flinched away, shielding Elizabeth in case he would strike one or both of them. Her shoulders drooped and her head hung in defeat. She watched him turn his back, finally, on his wife and daughter. She took a few dazed steps after him, bringing Elizabeth higher on her hip yet again. Now she did squeeze the little plump body of Elizabeth, the only child she had ever borne, the only one she would ever. Tears came to her eyes and she pressed one hand to her lower belly briefly before placing it back under Elizabeth.

"Your Majesty!" Anne shouted desperately. Henry was walking away, bringing both hands to his collar and adjusting his jacket. He ran his hands through his hair and drew himself up to his full height, squaring his shoulders, brushing off the moment that had just passed between them. "Your Majesty," Anne screamed, shrill and unbecoming as a banshee, "I beseech you!" Elizabeth jerked away, covering her ears with her hands. Anne placed one hand over her daughter's and sank down as a wave of dizziness hit her. After a long moment of fighting for composure, Anne kissed Elizabeth's temple. "I'm sorry, my love," she whispered as Elizabeth squirmed against her, giving off a slight whimper.

"You hurt my ear," Elizabeth accused. She had not been instructed much in the way of diction, and it sounded more like _you herd my year._

Anne squeezed her eyes shut against the tears and smiled at her daughter. "I know, my sweet, I did not mean to. I am sorry."

Elizabeth looked down the shaded path. Henry was a small black figure now, long past earshot. "Where's Papa?"

"He's busy." Anne flattened a palm against Elizabeth's back, hoping the warmth was comforting.

"Why he shouted?" Elizabeth's voice was both tremulous and roguish. She nuzzled absently against her mother's chin.

"Sometimes we all shout, don't we?"

"Mmm-hmmmm," Elizabeth agreed emphatically. "Lady Bryan says no."

Anne chuckled. "Lady Bryan is right," she said firmly. "Shouting is bad. Your Papa and I just behaved very badly, do you understand?"

"You hurt my ear," Elizabeth reminded her. Anne supposed this counted as Elizabeth saying she understood.

"I did, oh, I did," Anne paused to drop a bouquet of quick kisses all over her daughter's face, hair, and neck, until Elizabeth squealed in delight and mashed her face into Anne's chest.

"Silly!" The laughter was muffled.

"So silly," Anne whispered, kissing her daughter's red hair. "I'm sorry I hurt your ear, my little love. What must we do when people apologize?"

Elizabeth straightened up. "Forgive."

"And do you forgive me?" Anne placed an index finger under her daughter's chin.

"Yes, Mama."

Anne swallowed. "Do you love me?"

Elizabeth grinned, flashing tiny white teeth and dimples that matched Anne's own. "I love you, Mama."

When Anne stood up, Elizabeth squirmed. "Walk," she insisted again.

"Let me hold you," Anne requested, memorizing the shape of her daughter's body for when she would be unable to hold it again.

Elizabeth heaved a great, exaggerated sigh. She was very theatrical already. "We can go back to the flowers?"

Anne laughed a real laugh, the sound lifting into the clear air of this beautiful day. A hard lump, like a flat Thames stone, had settled in her belly. "If you let me hold you, we shall go straightway back to the flowers, sweetheart." Anne kissed Elizabeth's baby-soft cheek three times, loud, smacking kisses.

"Yes." Elizabeth giggled and pressed a child's kiss to her mother's cheek. "To the flowers."

vi.

When they took Elizabeth away, Anne watched her child go with both hands pressed to her cheeks. Elizabeth had collapsed in slumber on her mother's lap, two female souls reclined cozily in the window seat of the royal apartments. Anne had watched Elizabeth sleep, berating herself for not having done this more. _God forgive me for being a negligent mother,_ she had prayed silently, _I love her, she is my joy. I just thought…_ she couldn't articulate it in a way that sounded anything other than foolish. She had thought she would have more children, a nursery full. She had thought Elizabeth would stay small, wait for her, not grow into the child she was becoming. She had thought she had more time.

Lady Bryan had tiptoed in and out thrice, Anne waving her off each time: "Pray wait until the last possible moment." Finally, the governess had approached Anne apologetically, even as Anne gathered her sleeping daughter closer to chest.

"My lady, I apologize, but I must take Her Grace now. The litters are loaded and her retinue is assembled. We must go now or risk getting caught on the road at night." Elizabeth, the Whore's daughter, was not safe on the road at night.

Anne had nodded, easing to standing, cradling her daughter like a baby. "She's gotten so big," she whispered, smiling.

"She is a credit to Your Majesty in every way. She will yearn for you until you are next together."

Anne's eyes filled with tears. "Try not to wake her, yes?"

Lady Bryan's arms encircled the little princess. As her daughter's warmth and weight left her arms, Anne felt light as a feather, cold and alone. She touched Elizabeth's hair, ran a hand over her lace cuff. "D'you not wish to bid her farewell?"

"I would not know how," Anne whispered sadly. She palmed Elizabeth's slipper-clad foot. "When she rouses, tell her I love her."

"Of course, my lady." Lady Bryan bent at the knee before turning away, settling Elizabeth against her body in a familiar gesture. Elizabeth stirred ever so slightly in the arms of her governess, and she fitted her head into a crook on Lady Bryan's shoulder. Hot jealousy mixed with burning despair: Elizabeth did not know Anne's own body that well. She never would. Never again would Anne put her hands on her own child. She put both hands on her belly.

The door clanked shut behind Lady Bryan and Anne's one great accomplishment in life, and Anne sank to the floor in violent sobs, far from the despaired weeping she had been doing these past days. She was wailing, a guttural, ugly sound, and running her wet fingers over her hair.

Behind her, her ladies approached into a cautious semi-circle, darting nervous glances and shrugs among themselves. Finally, at the silent consensus of the group, who else but Nan came forward, picking her way over to her queen with her hands folded. "Majesty…" she trailed off.

"It is as though she has been ripped from my womb," Anne moaned, rocking herself. "God, it's like I've lost the only person who loves me, who would ever love me unconditionally. And how could I not have seen?" She directed the question at Nan, twisting her head up suddenly to address her maid. "All the things I coveted, and yet my priority was never time with my daughter."

All at once Anne was on her feet, forcing Lissie Seymour to jump out of the queen's path as she stormed into her bedchamber. Uncomfortable as ever, the ladies looked at one another, hoping that the queen just wanted some privacy. But within a minute, there was a rustling, and a strangled cry, and Lissie opened the door that Anne had flung closed behind her. There the queen stood, a heap of gowns over one arm. She raised her arm and let each gown slither to the floor. She watched as each one fell like a wounded soldier. She took her foot, still caked with mud on the heel and toe from chasing Henry through the gardens a few hours before, and brought it down on sky-blue silk. She dragged it across, snagging the fabric and putting a wave in it that could never be straightened out. She plucked the gown up into her hands as her ladies watched. Burying her face against the pearl-encrusted bodice, Anne bunched two fistfuls of skirt and yanked, apparently trying to split the fabric. The workmanship was stronger than her fingers. Breathing raggedly, Anne brought the gown down below her waist and one foot up, trying to tear a hole in it with her high heel. And then, in a frenzy of muffled French, Anne was stomping on the gowns, smearing mud across their mother-of-pearl and cloth-of-gold, trampling them beneath her feet.

"You are nothing," she said coldly to no one in particular. "Nothing."

Nan stepped back from the group of ladies. "I cannot watch this. Excuse me, ladies," she muttered, wiping tears from her eyes. Abruptly she spun on her heel and left the room, wringing her hands. The Sheltons exchanged glances. Mary pressed her head forward in fascination; Madge angled herself to stand behind her braver sister.

"Lissie," Anne sang out, breathless, "shall we save these for your sister?"

Lissie's plump lips opened a little. She swallowed. Found her voice. "No, Majesty. She could never wear them as you have."

"I have," Anne agreed. "God knows I have worn these. And the jewels, ladies, fetch my jewels, out into the streets of London we shall go with them, and sell every last stone and setting. Let us put the profits into a fund to pay for my daughter. I think because of me she will have no comfort of lifestyle, beginning very presently."

Anne swiped the poker from her fireplace and plunged it into the silk gown, smearing charcoal with mud and spearing the spectacular garment. She held the gown and yanked the poker, slicing an orifice into the fabric. She repeated the action. Again, and again. Finally, Lissie came forward – she may have been pushed by Madge, Anne could not quite see – and held up her palms as though surrendering. "My lady," she whispered in the golden bath of the late afternoon sunlight. "You must gather yourself."

"Gather, gather myself, Elizabeth, I have been gathered for ten years and more," Anne panted, although she let Lissie take the poker. "I have been contained within myself, organized and reinforced, and yet it's all crashing down around me. And what can I do to stop it? I've nothing left, no reason to gather myself."

Lissie cast a glance behind her, but the other ladies would not move. How she wished Nan were here. Slowly, Lissie placed the poker back in its spot on the hearth and curtsied before her mistress, putting her hands on the gown. Two sets of hands, one white and gaunt, the other freckled and young, clutched the sky-blue fabric. She looked up at Anne. "You are still the queen. At this moment, as I live and breathe, you are Queen of England, and no man can say otherwise. Gather yourself for the sake of your queenship and the future of your daughter. Your behaviour matters yet, my lady. Please."

Several moments passed before Anne's fingers lifted from the fabric. She stepped back and rubbed her thumbs over her tear-stained eyes. Eyes downcast, she muttered, "Separate the bodice from the skirt, and get the pearls taken off. I'll have them made into a necklace. By tonight."

"Yes, Madam." Lissie backed away. The other ladies drifted into the room to set right the mess of gowns Anne had made in the center of her bedchamber.

As Anne strode out of the room, probably to reclaim her spot in the window-seat to watch the sunset, she caught Lissie's shoulder. "I must seem mad to you, Lissie-"

"Not at all, my lady."

"No," the queen shook her head. "I must. But it is all right. I feel thus. Elizabeth, when your sister is queen, please take pains never to desert her. No matter how much gaiety… she will feel quite alone in the world."

Stunned, Lissie nodded. She made to turn away, the ruined gown bunched unelegantly in her arms.

"And if she has a child…" Anne trailed off, wiping her nose with the back of one hand. "Make sure she gets to hold her child. Whether it be prince or princess. A mother and child need one another." Wide blue eyes threatened to drown Lissie. "Will you remember?"

"Yes, Majesty." She wondered how she could ever forget.

vii.

Edward came out of nowhere, seizing both of Lissie's shoulders as she turned the gown over in her hands. The royal seamstress' face was wrinkled in horror at the state of the gown. "It's all right, my lady herself has-"

"Lissie, you're going," Edward cut in, the words stern and cold against her ear.

"What?" He was already tugging at her.

"I'll explain on the way, come."

She struggled out of his grip. "Wait, Edward, I am – wait." She turned back to the seamstress. "Sever the skirt from the bodice and remove all the pearls, and string them into a plain necklace," she explained.

"Now, Lissie."

"For the queen?" The seamstress stepped back, eyeing the scene developing between the Seymour siblings.

"Yes, yes, and please get it to her as quickly as possible, she is in a sad state," Lissie said hurriedly, wriggling against Edward. She rounded on him, furious. "God's sake, Edward, what is wrong with you?"

"We have to go."

"I'm speaking with the royal seamstress. Perhaps you've heard of etiquette?"

His lips curled in a sneer. "Lissie, I care nothing for etiquette at a time like this, and neither should you."

"But for the reputation of our family? At a time like this?" she shot back pointedly. "Honestly. Gather yourself." She turned to the seamstress again, pressed the fabric into her hands. "Please. With all speed. I fear…" Lissie shook her head. "I fear there is not much time."

As soon as the words left her mouth, Lissie regretted them. "Not much time?" The seamstress' eyebrows shot up. "How so, madam?"

"Good evening, my lady," Edward all but shouted, and lifted Lissie off her feet, both arms around her waist, feet in the air.

"_Edward!_" Lissie shrieked. "Stop it!" Her feet kicked at the air. The seamstress backed away, holding the blue silk against her chest as if to protect it from the sight. The last streaks of golden sunlight tumbled through the tall windows of the gallery, obstructed by the bobbing shadow of Edward Seymour's youngest sister as he carried her, screaming, away toward the Seymour rooms. "Where are we going?"

"You and Jane are going back to Wolf Hall. It is the king's command."

"Now?"

"This night."

Lissie's pulse spiked in panic. "But the queen –"

"She will be disposed of."

"Dis –" Lissie broke off, limp against her brother. She sagged in his arms, her dead weight too much for him to hoist in front of his abdomen. He dropped her to her knees between his feet. The seamstress had dashed off; they were alone in the gallery in the dusk; no pages had come to light the tapers as yet. Edward glanced around, then bent his lips to her ear again.

"Disposed of. Arrested. Executed. Finished. You knew this was coming, Lissie. How else did you think we would make our sister queen?"

"But not without saying good-bye," Lissie whimpered, hating herself for sounding so weak.

"Saying good-bye?" Edward snorted. "What, are you the queen's lover? Shall I have Master Cromwell add you to the list of those to be arrested on that charge? Get up, Elizabeth."

Hauling herself to her feet, Lissie took stock of her situation. "Must I leave now? Right now?"

"You and Jane are to pack and disembark tonight," Edward told her in a milder tone, offering his arm to her. She placed her hand in his, straightening her bodice. He squeezed her fingers to remind her who held the authority. "There is no time to lose. It is His Majesty's wish."

"It is all happening, isn't it," Elizabeth said softly.

"Yes. All our work shall come to fruition. And the time has come for you to demonstrate your loyalty to your family. You said to me, 'Edward, I will not leave unless I am destined for Wolf Hall.' Your wish, sweet sister." He made a gallant gesture with one hand.

Lissie nodded. They passed through a wide open hallway where a handful of courtiers were playing at checkers, drinking wine and watching the sun go down. Her eyes fell on the gold before anything else. Gold chain of office. And up, white collar. And up, the face of Thomas Cromwell. The mechanism of her mind creaked as ideas shuffled together. The queen's apartments were not far. She tried to catch Cromwell's eye, failed. _Gather yourself_, she thought.

Yanking away from Edward all at once, Lissie sang out cheerfully, "Begging your pardon, my lords, make way!" and dashed through the crowd. Edward was several paces behind, less graceful and bulkier, and Lissie was in Cromwell's line of sight before he had any chance of catching her. She slid past Cromwell, finally making eye contact, and murmured as she ducked behind his back.

"Help me, help me, help me," she pleaded.

Cromwell's forehead wrinkled and Edward slowed as he approached, his face the picture of confusion as well. Lissie placed both hands on Cromwell's back, palms to his shoulder blades, using him as a human shield.

"Master Seymour," Cromwell bowed a little. "Mistress Seymour. How fare you both this afternoon?"

Edward applied an affable smile. "My sister has just received word that she and Jane are to remove themselves to the country for a spell. Taking it quite hard, I'm afraid."

Cromwell spoke to Lissie over his shoulder, his tone light, teasing. "D'you not fancy the countryside, Mistress?"

"I do," Lissie allowed cautiously. "The order and its enforcement seem a little brusque to me. I have not had time to gather my belongings."

Edward rolled her eyes. "You have belongings enough at home. Come, Lissie, I've things to do."

Cromwell held up a hand. "I see the lady's point. Perhaps she could be permitted to retrieve a few items from her rooms and report to your presence within a quarter hour," he suggested.

Edward paused. "She has a history of…"

"I swear, Edward," Lissie broke in. "I only want my gowns and linens, and a prayer book from childhood. That I shared with Jane," she fabricated easily. Whatever it took to appeal to him.

"The sun sets, Mistress, and you've an obligation to your brother's authority," Cromwell said firmly as he turned to Lissie.

"I shall be there well before dark," Lissie vowed, and swept both men a real curtsey. She turned and fled down the corridor before Edward could stop her.

Cromwell turned back to Edward, whose dark eyes threatened to burn a hole in his sister's back. "Is she recalcitrant, my lord?" He tried to arrange his face in as disinterested an expression as possible.

"Her loyalties are torn," Edward explained. "I doubt her allegiance to the family and Jane sometimes, to be truthful."

"She will learn. Perhaps she does not fully understand the situation. Perhaps you could explain it to her."

Edward shook his head. "She's young and stubborn. She thinks she knows better than men."

_Maybe she knows better than all of us,_ Cromwell thought. "Shall I have a word with her, my lord?"

One corner of Edward's mouth curved upward. "That may be just the antidote, Master Cromwell."

"In that case," Cromwell tucked his dossier under one arm and nodded at Edward. "Give her a few extra minutes. Let me see what I can do to help."

"You are a man of many talents, sir," Edward said conspiratorially. He held out his hand. Cromwell shook it. "Incidentally, my sister Jane wished me to bid you her warmest farewell."

"Ah. Tell her I pray nightly for her health and well-being," Cromwell smiled. "And if your family requires anything in the coming days, do not hesitate."

A knock on Lissie's door caused her to jump. She backed against a wall, trying to see if there was anywhere to hide. Edward would be furious at her.

"Lissie?" The low voice was not her brother's. Elizabeth flung the door open. She had a bundle in her arms. "What on earth happened?"

"Edward caught me, dragged me off my feet and started to carry me down the corridor. He said I was leaving and could not say good-bye." Lissie's eyes peered over Cromwell's shoulders, waiting for her brother to jump out of a doorway.

Cromwell rubbed his temple. "And you've packed your things now?"

"Yes," she said breathlessly. "I've – Master Cromwell, I – I want to bid the queen farewell. I think I shall never see her again."

"Lissie…"

"Please." Her eyes filled with tears. "Please, you said you'd help me. I need your help."

He stared at her for a long moment and then sighed. "I've got to stop making promises in moments of passion. Fine. Have you got everything you need?"

viii.

Anne watched, confused, as Elizabeth Seymour flew into her bedchamber and knelt next to the window-seat where she reclined. "Your Royal Majesty," Lissie whispered, "I pray you forgive me. I must leave the court this evening, on my brother's orders."

"So soon," Anne commented lightly.

"I apologize from the depths of my soul, Majesty. I intended to stay, to see…" Lissie faltered.

"To see me through. I understand. I appreciate your loyalty, my dear." Anne nodded. She reached for Elizabeth's face, put one hand on each side. "Many things have passed between us. Know that nothing could darken my heart or mind against you, Elizabeth. I beg you to pray for me."

"Every hour, Majesty. Every hour." Lissie wanted to warn her mistress, to tell her that the end was coming. But the queen already knew this.

Anne pressed a kiss to Elizabeth's forehead. "You are so young. Cherish it."

"God save you," Elizabeth said fervently. Absently she wondered where the other ladies had gone; the queen's rooms were silent. She rose, took the queen's hand, kissed it.

"Lissie?" She turned on the threshold. The queen's profile was illuminated against the falling darkness outside the windows. "The necklace?"

Lissie smiled. "It shall be done by tomorrow, Majesty."

"Thank you. I wish you a safe journey. And the same for your sister."

ix.

"How often," Lissie mused as she took her bundle from the arms of Cromwell, who was shifting his feet in the empty corridor around the corner from the queen's apartments, "have you stood about holding a lady's linens?"

"You'd be surprised."

They fell into step. Lissie hesitated. "I do not want to go."

"You must," he replied plainly. "It is the king's direct wish that Jane be removed from court. You need to go with her; we cannot have you attending on the queen in the Tower, God knows, nor bumbling about court in the legal storm that's about to erupt. It won't be seemly. Not the proper atmosphere for a lady such as yourself. Your place is with Jane."

"But with Jane comes Edward. And he doesn't treat her so."

"She will shortly become his queen," Cromwell reminded her. Lissie's mouth opened, about to tell him that he did not understand, that it had always been this way. She stopped herself. Oblivious, Cromwell went on, "Your acquiescence will buy you mercy." He paused. "And I told him I would have a word with you about fulfilling your familial obligations."

"Oh?"

They neared Edward's rooms. Lissie clutched her bundle tighter. "That's how I bought the extra time," Cromwell explained.

Lissie reached for his hand and managed to squeeze it before he pulled away.

"Pity's sake, Lissie," Cromwell muttered.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."

"Stop thanking me. I do not deserve it. I am no saviour."

"In this moment, you are mine. I am in your debt eternally. Believe what you wish." She glanced up at him. "Master Cromwell, truly."

Edward's door was visible. "Just play your part for a short spell, Lissie, and then you will be back at court and safe. Things will change when Jane is queen."

Before they got too close, Lissie took her last chance to say it. "You could still stop it," she said in a low voice.

Cromwell nodded, eyes at the ground – _I know_ – and knocked at Edward's door. "I return your sister to you," he said after a deferential bow, "a woman both of increased luggage and obedience."

"Are you man or wizard," Edward chided. He gestured inside. "Elizabeth. My deepest thanks, Master Cromwell."

Lissie turned and watched as Cromwell bowed again, bordering on reverential. Playing his part for a short spell, she thought. Soon, she suspected, Cromwell would break Edward and harness him like a show horse. But for now, "It was my pleasure, my lord. Let me know if I can be of service in the future."

After Cromwell left, Edward turned to Lissie with narrowed eyes. "You see sense, now, Lissie?"

She thought of Queen Anne, _many things have passed between us. I beg you to pray for me._ She nodded, dropped a small curtsey with the bundle of linens under her arm. "Yes, my lord."

Edward moved to brush past her but stopped even with her shoulder, resting a finger against Lissie's lips. "'My lord.' I quite like that, Lissie," he murmured. Lissie closed her eyes unwillingly. He moved on, turned back after a few steps. "Oh, I spoke with Jane," his smile was almost evident in his tone, "and she said you never shared a prayer-book as children. Let's get your packing finished, my sweet sister." A small wave of nausea washed over her as she stared at the heavy wooden door of Edward's presence chamber, with its three new shiny bolts and fresh iron reinforcements. From whom was Edward protecting his rooms? It seemed the only direction anyone would ever want to go would be out.

**UP NEXT:**

"Does it trouble you?" she asked, sitting back on her heels, purple velvet billowing further up around her. "To accuse those men whom you know to be innocent?"

"I do not know them to be innocent."

She glared at him. "You do."

"No."

"Perhaps you try to think nothing so you will have no scruples. No conscience. Not that you have one anyway. But you are an intelligent man, and surely you see the irony. Accusing men, interrogating them, trying to prove that they have committed the act that, in fact, you have committed."

He pushed himself close to her, heedless of the velvet that crunched under his knees, and felt alarm that she seemed far less intimidated than any male courtier he had interviewed thus far. "Stop it."

In a flash, she was the old Anne again, eyes glittering, a slow smile turning up one side of her mouth. "It troubles you," she assured him. "Despite your reputation, you are human. And it troubles you. And you think about it. D'you think about it while you ask them questions? D'you fill the chinks of the stories with details from your own memory?"

He looked down. Two long fingers grazed his gold chain of office. He pushed her hand away. "No," he mumbled.

"Why are you here? I can offer you no absolution." He was silent. "It dances through your mind, whatever you do, it haunts you. You cannot escape it," she whispered knowingly.

**Yes, they're BACK! Things are about to get intense. Please note, I have written the entire next chapter and can publish it basically any time, but I really want to get some reviews before I do so… thus, if you'd like to see where this scene goes, please leave me a review =D**


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N: Hello, all – here we are on the last chapter before Anne is arrested. As promised, an intense scene between Anne and Cromwell – thank you all for reading, and please review. =D **

**PS I AM ON TUMBLR! YAY! "TUDORSTACKS" =D If you're there, let's connect!**

**Louisa, welcome! Thank you for following the link from Tumblr and checking out my work! I appreciate your compliments so much, and it's fantastic to know that the story can capture the interest of someone who has just stumbled upon it. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. (Lissie's character has been evolving lately and I am very pleased with her… I have never written creatively before this story, so it is very much a learning tool and I see Lissie as my first attempt at a serious supporting character – so your comments really help me!) Please let me know how you feel about future chapters as well!**

**Rae, LOL I am publishing on a weekday again! Use this chapter to distract yourself if you wish ;) Please let me know how you feel about Cromwell and Anne here. As for Edward and Lissie, things are going to get crazy next chapter – check out the preview! Thanks for being such a reliable reviewer =D**

**Hi Alyson! Thank you, as always, for your insights and comments on the different parts of the story. I wanted to describe Anne's anguish as Elizabeth is taken from her, since the figurative meaning of the separation has a great impact of which Anne is painfully aware. Cromwell/Lissie are an interesting pair, and I've loved how they've evolved in the past few chapters (none of this was at all planned; it just happened! I guess that's how it's supposed to be? =D). They will definitely have more interaction as well. We'll get some more Jane as well, and an interesting Seymour portrait next chapter, away in the country. And I have to say, if you're reading Wolf Hall, you're not creating the moments of weird tension between Anne and Cromwell there. There's the Mary Boleyn/Cromwell situation in that book, and that recurs, and it's overt. But there is absolutely a very subtle thread of Anne/Cromwell in there. There are three examples of this that stick out to me – at one point he and Anne are standing in a balcony or something, I think, and he is looking at her bodice, and has a very absent/vague thought of trailing a finger along the edge of the bodice – it's not about Anne, it's about the cut of the bodice, but it's absolutely there and provocative. Secondly, when Anne is in the Tower before her coronation and she is lying in bed, exhausted, he comes in (she insists, even though her ladies are like "no, go away, she's in bed" – noteworthy on its own) and he says something like, "are you sure you can do this?" … very intimate comment. More like what a lover would say than a friend/political ally. And finally there's a scene somewhere in the garden where Anne is with her ladies and they're giggling, and then Anne puts her hand on Cromwell's arm and "the giggling stops" or something – and Mary Boleyn remarks to Cromwell that Anne says Cromwell is "her man," and Mary frowns and says "I don't like when she says that." These recollections are all at the top of my head so forgive me if I'm not quoting correctly, but the trend of Anne/Cromwell is absolutely THERE and some people find it so obvious, while others don't at all. It's fascinating to me. And let it be known that I did not read Wolf Hall until long after I started this story – but maybe Ms. Mantel and I are of one mind? =) As for Anne being "in the family way" – it certainly seems possible, eh? =D Thank you for reviewing, and everything else!**

**Guest! I am so glad to have you. Thank you for your wonderful comments and especially the note about the story actually being plausible – that's something I've worked very hard to balance, and it's a struggle in every chapter as I say to myself, "can I do this? This is just not historically accurate." My difficulty is that I've got a degree in Tudor history and I'm frustrated by inaccuracy, yet there are times where I have to choose the story instead of the record. And then try to find some compromise. It's been a great ride. =D**

**LeCreationist, thank you for requesting this next chapter and for your compliments. I'm glad the story is gripping you and I can't wait to hear what you think of this installment!**

**CrystalSearcher, LMAO! I always giggle at your snarky reviews. They're fantasmic. Please leave me another one lol!**

2 May

i.

Late Afternoon

The queen's voice floated through the door, low and timid. "Nan?"

Nan sat up, sniffling and wiping her eyes. "Majesty?"

"Would –" The queen tried the door. "Would you open the door?"

"Yes, yes, madam." Nan hustled to the door and threw it open. She curtseyed awkwardly. "I am sorry for my departure, my lady…"

Anne shook her head and cut in. "Believe me, my dear, I would depart too if I could." She paused. "Please come back. I need you."

"I… of course, my lady."

"Take some time." Anne stepped back. "Right yourself. I'd like to see you before supper." Anne turned on her heel and left.

Apparently, when Her Majesty had mentioned supper, she did not mean that she would be eating it. Her ladies sat down to a quiet meal in the presence chamber while Anne paced around her bedroom, plucking a trinket or book into her hand, fiddling with it, placing it back where she had found it. Nan tried to coax her mistress into eating, but Anne refused.

The maid leaned in to Mary Shelton. "Where's Lissie?"

"Gone," Mary responded.

As dusk fell, the ladies lit the tapers themselves. No one mentioned that this was usually the duty of some young man, be he page or other attendant. No one asked where Master Smeaton had gone, and whether he could be called in to play a cheery tune. No one said, it's May Day, and why are we not banqueting. No one said much of anything.

Nan wrapped a thick velvet cloak around the queen's shoulders, tucking the ends together like a tartan. The other ladies hummed about, treading softly, but there was almost no talk. No one chatted. Not even Mary Shelton could be called upon to entertain them. A heavy, wet sense of finality fell upon them as the darkness came. Forgetting herself, Nan ran her fingers over the queen's loose hair. Anne shrugged deeper into the velvet and turned to her maid with a sad smile. "Thank you," she whispered. Nan saw that the queen felt the conclusiveness too.

Just as all settled into quiet, Anne turned to look at her ladies. She faced the group, but her words were clearly meant for Nan. "So," she mused. "I think I shall never make the trip to France." She gave a light, almost sensual gurgle of laughter. "No sense wasting the purple gown."

Nan sighed inwardly. "Majesty…"

"I'd like to put it on."

"Madam, perhaps we should wait for –"

"There is nothing else to wait for, Nan. There is nothing left." The queen got to her feet. "Come, ladies, let's fetch the gown. And maybe a headpiece to go with it. No mind to sleep early tonight; I've an audience with the Lord. I should try to look my best." The ladies-in-waiting moved like tired sheep, jostling and stumbling about the room as though in a dream. Anne watched them, trying to memorize their profiles, the way they moved. They had been with her every day for years. She picked at the shredded skin around her fingernails, wondering what would become of them after she was gone.

ii.

Dusk

"Good evening, Master Cromwell," Henry Norris smiled in surprise as the secretary fell into step beside him in the dusky Great Hall. "How fare you this night?"

Cromwell cleared his throat. "Regretful, Sir Henry. I regret to inform you that I must conduct you to the Tower of London to sustain His Majesty's will."

The courtier's brows wrinkled in shock. He glanced around as four men clad in Tudor livery encircled them. Sir Henry drifted to a stop at the sight: royal guards here to arrest the king's chief gentleman at the order of Thomas Cromwell. "The Tower? What has – His Majesty…"

"A barge awaits us, my lord."

"But – Cromwell, why?"

"You have fallen under suspicion of the king for having had intimate knowledge of Her Majesty Queen Anne." Cromwell delivered the line plainly, brutally. The lively Norris deflated at once, and his eyes widened in panic. He cast another gaze about as if looking for an escape route.

"Intimate knowledge? Intimate…" He turned in the direction of the stairs, but the guards were too quick. Henry Norris dove into a thicket of brawn and struggled against the king's men. "No, no, it's not true, no, _no, no_!" His insistence turned into screams. He dug his heels against the stone floor, to no avail. The Hall was almost empty, but its few inhabitants, largely shrouded in shadow themselves, turned and gaped in silence.

"Compose yourself," Cromwell hissed as if ashamed of Norris's conduct. "Will we need to bind you in chains?"

A flush overtook the courtier's face and neck. "Cromwell, you fucking devil," he growled. "You son of a whore."

Not caring to respond, Cromwell shrugged at the guards. "Put him in the barge. Use whatever force you must."

"I never slept with the queen," Norris insisted as he struggled against the guards' grip. A page whose face Cromwell recognized threw open the double doors as Norris was hauled out of the palace.

"I'm sure."

"I never – Master Cromwell, this is ridiculous, I have never laid a finger on the king's wife, I am, God's sake, I am betrothed to one of her ladies!"

The secretary kept his eyes trained at the path before him. "The truth will be revealed, my lord."

Norris remembered himself before they got to the barge, and he was, again, the honourable courtier. The man's head tilted back as they neared the Tower and its mammoth form loomed over them. Norris turned to him, Cromwell, again, and quietly said, "Master Secretary, I have never enjoyed any intimacy with Her Majesty. I swear to you on the mass. On my late wife's death mask."

"I hear you, sir."

"I am the king's humble servant," Norris persisted. "I love His Majesty and have since our boyhood. I would never betray him thus."

"Yes, my lord."

Norris shook his head. "It is no use, appealing to you now, is it, Cromwell?"

Cromwell shot him a dark glance, more honest than he had planned. "No, my lord."

Norris cleared his throat, preened his hair to smoothness under the edge of his cap. "Very well. I expect adequate accommodations. As His Majesty's chief groom."

"I cannot say what rooms have been prepared for you," Cromwell murmured as the oarsmen swung the vessel into place against the dock. Kingston, Constable of the Tower, stood waiting for them. The man's frown lines were as pronounced as those of Jane Boleyn. What an unhappy group was here in England, Cromwell thought.

Norris walked in haughty silence to the Tower, and Cromwell stepped back to deposit him fully into Kingston's charge. To his shock, Norris whirled, a look of fear in his eyes. "Cromwell, are you not staying? Will you not accompany me?"

Cromwell paused. Did the man want him for company? Did he think that, at least, no harm would come to him as long as Master Secretary was around? "I've other tasks. Fear not; you are in good hands." He nodded at Kingston, who responded with a slight bow of the head, eyes closed. "I shall be back to see you, Sir Henry."

"Interrogate me," the groom called after him as Cromwell walked away. He wondered how long Norris stood there, watching his freedom leave the Tower yard and board the barge back to Greenwich, before he turned to be led to his cell.

iii.

Francis Weston was more difficult. He was young, powerfully built, handsome and fair. He had just finished pressing an ornate kiss to the hand of a lady when Cromwell appeared, requesting a quick word. His lopsided smile suggested he wanted to teach the secretary a thing or two about romancing. But his swagger stiffened to a halt at Cromwell's quiet conveyance: adultery. Treason. Tower. He did not have the cultivated sense of honour that had caused Henry Norris to pull himself together on the way up the Thames. Weston thrashed and railed, screaming at passing boats and people on the riverbank about being falsely accused. Cromwell sat still beside him, a careful smile arranged on his face, an expression that said to onlookers, _he's just gone a little mad, let us humour him._

The royal guards had to be employed to carry Weston dockside, an uncertain task in the seeping twilight. Kingston made eye contact. "My lord."

"Sir William." They followed the liveried young men who propelled an enraged Weston inside the Tower gate. "Norris?"

"Wants to know what time dinner will be, and if we can arrange for some of his own linens to be brought."

Cromwell grinned. "With pleasure." The king's men unloaded Weston, sending him into the custody of the Tower guards. Cromwell wanted to caution the young man: the guards of the Tower were not the polite guards of the court. They would not tolerate kicking and screaming. Weston had best gather himself. But on the other hand, Cromwell thought, if Weston continued carrying on thus, it would appear that he had something to hide.

Kingston's voice was barely above a murmur. "And the others?" He would have chosen the accommodating wing for the prisoners of the royal wrath, ordered the rooms prepared, and notified the Tower staff of their impending arrivals just after dawn this morning. The list of names had been delivered by Cromwell's boy Mark, accompanied by Riche, in the nauseating grayness before first light. The letter and Cromwell's personal seal had been burned after the contents were absorbed by Kingston. Now the man just had to wait for his prisoners, his bodies. The bodies of the Tower were his life. He did not take his responsibility lightly.

"Brereton has been apprehended. He was on his way back to his post in Wales. I shall meet him on the river."

The constable blinked as they both watched Weston disappear into the outer corridor of the Tower. "And the Viscount?"

"Tomorrow. With the poet." Mentally Cromwell checked them off, one by one, drew a line beneath the list of names. Riche had been right: Wyatt must be apprehended, if for the sake of credulity alone. Cromwell would store him away somewhere safe, an isolated cell tucked somewhere in this labyrinth, and make sure no harm met him.

"Ah. So by tomorrow evening, we shall have the musician, the groom, the gallant, the deputy, the viscount, and the poet. A full house."

"Hope not," Cromwell chuckled. "Is that all the room you've got?"

Kingston adjusted the flaps of his hat over his ears. It was such a chilly spring. "D'you intend to arrest a handful more?" he asked blandly.

"No. Those will be the only ones."

"And…" Kingston trailed off.

Cromwell pursed his lips. "And?"

Kingston turned a blank face to Cromwell, a blank face that he could hardly see in the last dying embers of this, the forgotten May Day. "The queen, sir."

iv.

Evening

Word traveled too quickly at court. Lady Wingfield had been dallying in the Hall with Francis Weston when he had stepped away for a word with Master Secretary. The next thing she knew, she was slithering along the inner wall watching as Sir Francis was hauled, screaming, out the palace door. The secretary's step was steady, sure. This had been planned.

In a corridor off the Hall, she ran into a stoic Madge Shelton. The girl's tearstained cheeks gave way to her placid expression as she told Bridget, Lady Wingfield, that her husband-to-be had also disappeared into the custody of Thomas Cromwell. Bridget looked down at the back of her hand, where Francis Weston had pressed a chuckling kiss.

"And Mark Smeaton before? What is Cromwell doing, trying to build a stable of courtiers?"

Madge gave her a hard look. Bridget was not known for her intelligence. Her marble complexion and fiery October-auburn hair made up for it. "I guess we shall see," Madge said.

Information leaked back into Greenwich's somber walls, although no one was quite sure how, and the next whispers had it that Sir William Brereton had been taken into Cromwell's custody. The men were in the Tower. The king had shut himself in his privy chambers and ordered a roast chicken with plum sauce for supper. Word passed from the lips of royal pages, too naïve to know better, to lower servants, to be extracted by courtiers with polished coins in their palms. Ivory dresses huddled together in corners, passed by the right conversations at the right moments, giving perfunctory empty smiles designed to fool men into thinking that the queen's ladies were oblivious. Mary Shelton cornered a young man in plain black livery who assured her that the queen's person was in no harm.

"Who else?" Her wide black eyes looked like they belonged to someone much older than nineteen. He shook his head. "Those four only? No one else? Who else?"

"I am sorry, my lady, I cannot –"

"I've a pocket full of money," she whispered, patting the pouch that dangled from a chain at her waist. "I can double your wages for the month." She pressed him back against the wall, both hands on his chest.

He turned his head away, clutched a soft bundle, what looked like linens, closer to his person. "I do not need money, madam."

"How, then? Tell me what you want." She pressed more than her hands against him, propriety utterly deserting her. If ever there was a time to cast off decency, this was the moment. Guilt nipped at her ankles; the loss of her mistress hung low over her head.

He began to pant.

"Tell me your name, at least."

"Mark."

"Mark," she repeated. "Mark, is there a pleasure I can grant you, some token of affection that would please you enough to grace me with the information I seek?"

The young man seemed to be sweating and thinking fast. "What names have you heard?"

"Smeaton, of course. Norris. Weston."

"And?"

"Brereton? Is it true?"

"Yes." And he slipped through her fingers like sand. Before she knew it, Mary was standing against the wall by herself as the boy turned the corner. "No more than that. Good evening, my lady."

"Mark."

v.

Nan Saville saw a glint of red hair in the light of a freshly lit torch. She caught his elbow as he rounded a corner. "Master Riche…"

"Mistress Saville."

"I must speak with Master Cromwell."

"He is indisposed, my lady."

"Where?"

Riche shook his head. "Upriver."

"Please," she grasped at his coat, "please, I must speak to him. My lady is…"

"It is not possible. I am sorry." He shook her off.

"Will he come for her soon?" Nan whimpered.

Riche sighed and stepped back. "I cannot speak of this, madam." He turned away.

She plodded after him a few steps. "But please, please – I feel like I have betrayed her."

"You have." He looked over his shoulder. His face was barely visible in darkness. This corridor had not yet been lit. "And yourself. We all have. Good evening, Mistress Saville."

vi.

Madge pinched her nostrils and wiped the clear discharge on her sleeve. "I can't even look at her," she whimpered. "It's my fault."

"It's all our faults," Mary Shelton muttered back. "Every last one." She turned to look at Madge. "Isn't it something? We all betrayed her in that room without realizing what it truly meant. We saved ourselves, or so we thought. And now look what we've done."

"I'm going to Hell," Madge whispered miserably.

Mary nodded. "Stop sniveling. We all are. Let us be good servants while we can." She paused. "D'you mourn for Sir Henry?"

Madge nodded. Mary thought to herself that she should apologize to her sister for taunting her all these months, that Henry Norris had never meant to truly wed and bed her; that she had spoiled herself with the king; that Henry found Mary herself more attractive. But she bit the words back. They would just cause more tears. There would be enough of those already.

vii.

It was late, an ugly still night, when the ladies reconvened in Nan Saville's bedchamber. It was the natural place. Madge sat sniffing in one corner.

"What's all this about Lissie now?" Nan asked as soon as she shut the door.

"Gone, I told you." Mary Shelton's tired eyes implored her.

"But where?"

"The Seymours left court – all but Edward," Bess offered. I saw them go. They barely took anything. Perhaps just home or to the city for a short spell?"

"Like as anything to ride out the storm." Nan nodded, sitting down on a stool next to her vanity.

Madge gazed out the window. "Lucky."

"I don't envy Lissie," Mary argued. She rolled onto her back on Nan's bed, spreading her arms out like angel wings. "God knows I don't envy that girl."

Bess shook her head. "I don't think she envies herself."

"If she is the queen's sister, she can expect…" Madge began.

"Unless the queen falls," Nan cut her off harshly. "If Mary Boleyn hadn't… she could be in danger too."

Mary Shelton stretched, arching her back like a cat. "Someone should remind Lissie of that example."

"Lissie's not a fool. She will see the path before her." Bess' quiet voice was heavy with conviction.

"So," Nan said as she unpinned her hood. "Smeaton. Norris, Brereton, and Weston. They are all in the Tower?"

"Brereton was on his way to Wales," Bess offered. "I know that much. He was to be caught and arrested on the journey."

"Maybe he was running away?" Nan turned to the mirror and began unplaiting her hair.

"I don't think so." Bess shook her head. "He is rarely at court, you know. I think he was just here for the close of Parliament. Maybe he thought to stay for May Day, but…" she made a careless motion with her hand as she sat down on the bed next to Mary.

"The others went straight from court," Mary added. "Weston and Norris from the Great Hall."

"Straight out the front door," Madge said wistfully, still staring at the moon.

Mary giggled. "Let's all avoid the Hall, lest we be arrested too." No one laughed with her. "Oh, come. Can no one see the irony?"

"And where is Master Cromwell?" Bess rolled her eyes at Mary.

Nan glanced at Bess in the mirror. "Where do you think? In the thick of it. Probably deciding how to arrange the heads on the bridge."

Madge let out a wail and hauled herself out of her chair. "I can't," she murmured. "Good evening, ladies."

Nan rubbed her eyes as Madge struggled to get the door open and let it slam after her. "Mary, tend to your sister."

"Almost midnight," Mary commented as she sat up. "Goodnight, ladies. I shall see you in the morning."

When they were alone, Nan regarded Bess again in the mirror. She cleared her throat, running her fingers through her hair. "Bess, I've often wondered how Master Cromwell managed to coordinate our interviews that night during the banquet. I've thought to myself, I cannot fathom how he would have known the way to unlock each of us. To turn us so readily." Green eyes held Bess' brown ones. "Isn't it curious?"

Bess appeared unruffled. "It is."

"Since the queen's chambers are privately run, and we spend nearly all our waking moments there, I think there must have been some arrangement, some sharing of privy information about the way we, as the queen's household, function."

This time, Bess blinked. She swallowed; Nan could see the lump slide down her throat. "That could be," she said quietly.

"You are so timid, Bess." Nan gave a little smile. "So soft-spoken. Like Mistress Seymour. Yet there is clearly more to her than we see." She turned from the mirror and faced Bess. "I have given this perplexing matter, of Master Cromwell's puppeteering that made traitors of Her Majesty's innermost household, much thought. I cannot say how he has done so if not from some treacherous arrangement with one of us." Nan's sweet freckled face took on a celestial glow; her green eyes sparkled as the firelight reflected in them. "I wonder at what sort of foul, base person could betray her mistress and her peers thus."

Bess just stared.

"Is it not a wonder?" Nan's eyes crinkled, and her mouth twisted in something Bess had never seen there: a smirk.

"A wonder indeed." Bess took a deep breath, the tendons of her neck straining in an unattractive fashion.

Nan shrugged and turned back to her mirror, tugging the partlet out of her bodice. "But then, I guess I should not be surprised. There are vile creatures all about this court. Sometimes it seems as though the sewers have leaked straight into the royal gallery. A shame." She tsk-ed her tongue. "I find myself tired, Mistress Dormer. See yourself out."

Bess rose to go, closing the door softly behind her.

viii.

After Midnight

Mark saw his master coming toward him, accompanied by two of the Tower guard. The royal guards, he knew, had already gone back to the palace. Mark wondered why his master would need to be flanked by such muscle. Was he not safe? Was he not one of the most powerful men in the kingdom?

"Evening, my boy," Cromwell greeted him in the misty fog of the night. "You've got – oh, thank you. For Sir Henry Norris. With my compliments." The secretary had relieved Mark of the cloth bundle he had been clutching: bedlinens from Sir Henry's rooms, for his comfort in the Tower. Mark hoped he had gotten the right ones. Cromwell tossed them at the Tower guards with a chuckle. The beefy man grinned back and tipped his cap.

"Good night, sir."

"I shall see you soon," Cromwell responded and ushered Mark back into the waiting barge. "I apologize to have you running such errands at this hour."

"Not at all, sir." They settled into their seats and he turned to his master. "Some of the queen's ladies have been asking questions about the court."

"I am sure they are not the only ones," Cromwell said fairly. "Just wait until tomorrow."

Mark persisted. "One of them, the young one, was pressing me for information."

Cromwell smiled, his face washed in moonlight. "The young one? The little Shelton? Pressing you, eh? I'll bet she was. Is that what took you so long?" He elbowed his page.

"I just tried to divert her – I was not sure what to say –"

"You did fine. I am sure of it. And even if you did not, it does not much matter, for once the queen is arrested the court will be thrown into chaos." His master was still for a moment. "It will all fall apart."

It was a short ride back to Greenwich, and a short walk back to the secretary's rooms, whose usual inhabitants were mostly gone. Cromwell was not surprised to find Riche in his office, sitting bleary-eyed next to a pitcher of wine.

"Richie." Cromwell placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder. He picked up a sheaf of letters from Antwerp, from Bloise, from Perugia. He laid them on a small table and indicated them to Mark. "In the morning, will you see to it that these are reviewed and outlined for me? I shall leave them here. You need not be here early tomorrow. It shall be a long few days; get your rest."

"Yes, sir." Mark's eyes ticked to and fro: Cromwell's steadiness, Riche's wobbliness. He stepped back, out of the situation, and bowed. "Sir. Master Riche."

"Goodnight." Cromwell dropped into his chair and found the food Mrs. Lockton had left for him: beef and apple. He had sent word that he would be back late and not require a bath until morning, but he had known that she would provide for him. He would not be surprised to find a tub prepared for him, heating by the fire in his bedchamber, just in case he changed his mind. Cromwell picked up an apple slice and looked at his colleague, who had been silent this entire time. He chuckled. "Richard? Have you been waiting for me with wine?"

"They're all going to die?"

Cromwell sighed. He had been afraid of this. "Yes."

"I see you added Wyatt. Any reason? Did he write a new sonnet not to your taste?"

"No." Cromwell almost defended himself, almost said, _I would never sacrifice a man on such slender grounds,_ but he stopped himself. "Just for appearance's sake."

Riche blinked rapidly as though he had cataracts. "Would it do right by appearance's sake if I bowed out of the proceedings? Came back to court in June?"

"Richie…"

"If I was sick and had to take to my bed," Riche persisted.

The secretary paused. "I need you."

A long pause. Riche threw back the rest of the contents of his goblet and shook his head, staring at the ground. "I can't do it."

"It's your duty," Cromwell said gently. "Tell me you accept this commission. It is a question of loyalty to the king."

"It is a question of the health of my soul," Riche croaked. "I…"

"Dammit, Richie," Cromwell interrupted, his tone not above conversational. He smacked a palm half-heartedly on the surface of his desk. "Dammit. You have to. There is no choice. This is your duty."

"Or?" Riche's mouth hung open after he finished the syllable, the mark of a sloppy drunk man.

Cromwell shook his head. "There is no 'or.'"

"Or I shall join them in the Tower?" Riche asked blandly.

Several pregnant moments stretched between them. "Get out of my office," Cromwell finally said. "Come back in the morning when you are well. We've work to do. And I'll have no more talk of this." He stared Riche down, making no move to pick up paper or pen.

Riche got to his feet and shuffled toward the door like a disoriented puppy. "Or?" he said over his shoulder.

"No 'or.'"

He lasted no more than three minutes, shuffling papers and organizing them into stacks, dire, important, I'll get to it next month. He touched the wick of an unlit candle to one of the tapers behind his desk and made for his alcove. The little stool was nudged into place. He climbed up, straining forward. He craned his neck. There was a soft glow coming from the opposite window.

He snuffed out his own candle.

He could see no movement, feel no movement. The palace was quiet; the stone walls slumbered under his very palms. He measured the time: a little past one? A quarter past one? He counted the hours until she would be arrested. He would have no chance then. No chance, starting ten, eleven hours from now.

Each man had reacted with violence to his accusations of adultery with the queen. In a silent, unspeakable part of his heart, he had been anxious at each delivery of the line. He had feared he would see recognition, guilt. He had feared that one of the men would confirm the charge, and that he, Cromwell, would have to make amends with the fact that this man had shared her, known her, been driven halfway to madness by thoughts of her as he had. But perhaps it would have been a comfort, he thought, to realize this. He would have felt less like a fool. Less alone. Less desperate. And less curious. In those tense moments of this day, with men staring back at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Cromwell had faced his worst fear of her and found that he was pleased to know that none of it was true. And he had thought of her all day, of her face, her breath, her voice. The irony of all this was like a slow-seeping wound in his head: robbing him of various parts of his mind, particularly reason, a little and a little. After this was all over, he would recover. If he survived it.

And he very well might not survive it, because, contrary to what he had promised himself this morning at mass – was it only this morning? – he had not taken a deep breath. He had started with empty lungs, and they were now filled with her, with the accusations, and the denials of those men he had already accused. They rang in his ears and they filled him with pleasure, a primal, soothing sense of only-ness, of specialness, of territory.

He very well might not survive it, he thought as he prodded the stool back into place and placed the doused candlestick on his desk between two stacks of carefully sorted missives. There were moments, he had feared there would be moments and, yes, there were moments already today, where he could just as easily see himself in the places of his prisoners. He had lived and died, he thought, a million times since that day on his desk. He had died a thousand deaths of anxiety, guilt, paranoia, and lived a thousand moments of rapture and fantasy that granted him an evil pleasure to which no man was entitled. He did not care. Just for a moment, he thought as he shut his office door behind him, he would turn his back on that to which he was not entitled. Before he lost his nerve, he must do it, or else regret it for every day that remained to him. And what matter was it anyway? For he only had this one last chance.

ix.

She was resplendent. She was absolutely resplendent.

He stood in the doorway for several moments, taking in the scene before him. Anne was at prayer, kneeling in one corner of the room alongside her vanity table of all things. A candle burned on the sill above her, but there was no host – no rosary – nothing but a woman and the Lord. She wore a sumptuous gown, deep purple velvet, the hue indicating the fabric had been marinated instead of simply dyed. The gown was sewn all over with gold thread in intricate patterns, fleur de lis and lover's knots among them. It was cut low and square in the back, and Anne's hair was pulled into yet another knot, this one simple like she had done it herself. On top of her head sat a small, round gold crown.

The crown caught the light as Anne breathed in, her shoulder blades shifting and threatening to pierce her skin. Her hands were clasped in front of her chest. She turned her head slightly, her feline eyes sliding sideways in the candlelight to search out the intruder. He wanted to hide. He remembered how it had been that day, the king lying lifeless in the tent beside the tiltyard, Anne's gray gown and long heavy veil wrapped around herself and her growing child as she prayed for the man who jousted under another lady's colours that day. He had come into the chapel behind her. She had turned her head, twisted, peering through the lace at him. One hand had covered the bump in her stomacher as if to shield the fetus from the news. He had had no message for her. She had turned back to Christ.

There was no Christ this time, only a flame to whom she could address her prayers. The queen turned back to the wall. She readjusted her palms and folded her fingers together. She bowed her head as if in thought, and he heard the gentle rushing sound of whispering, the queen's lips producing the sound of windswept leaves. He could not make out what she was saying.

He took a step toward her, then another, asking himself with each pace what on earth he thought he was doing. Somehow this had not seemed so ludicrous when he was in his office, nor even on the river, for – to be frank – he had been half-planning this, and more than half-dreaming of it, all day. But now that he stood behind her, he could not figure out why he had come. He wished she had asked him, had shouted at him, had even so much as glared at him. Her eyes had flicked to him, then away.

The purple velvet pooled around her, the apparently voluminous skirts bunching up about her hips. Why was she wearing such a heavy gown, so late at night? Where were her ladies? How did she intend to get out of it for bed? Not that he was worried about her getting undressed.

Cromwell stood behind the queen. He wondered if her eyes were closed. The flame leapt and shadow covered Anne's right side. His gaze tracked her neckline, the hollow above her collarbone, the ridge of her shoulder that seemed sharper every time he glimpsed it.

Anne sighed. "Are you going to kneel with me?" She dropped her hands and turned to him, the reflected firelight on her crown almost blinding him.

He stepped back. "Majesty?"

"Why are you here?" her fingers separated as if to grasp her expanding frustration. "Why have you come? Not to hurt me, I have stopped suspecting that; unless you have a knife on your person?"

Cromwell swallowed, half guilty, half angry that she would think such a thing. "No, Majesty."

"And why would you need to?" she asked evenly. "When you'll dispose of me legally. Subjecting poor Mark Smeaton to whatever brutish measures-"

"Not an inch of his body has been harmed or invaded," Cromwell cut her off. "Not an inch."

"The rumours say otherwise," Anne shot back hotly. He only shook his head. "Have you come here to waste my time with argument, Master Cromwell?"

"No."

"So why?"

He swallowed. _Because I am driven mad by the glow of a candle in your window. Because I think I shall never see your face again. Because I want to memorize the curve of your neck, the angle of your cheekbone, so when Henry burns your portraits after you're gone, I will remember what you looked like._

Anne shook her head minutely at his silence. "You're afraid, too. But in a different way." She turned back toward the candle and her hands found one another again. "Kneel with me."

It was a request, not a command. She did not move her gown for him as he picked his way to the spot beside her and got on his knees, steadying himself with his hands. How she knelt on this stone floor for extended periods without a cushion was beyond him. When he righted himself, he loomed half a head taller than she. He placed his palms together, daring a glance at her, and saw that she was lost in prayer. Silent conversation. The tendons in her neck crested and flexed as she drew great deep breaths into her lungs, inhaling the Lord. Her face was uplifted. Her eyes were closed. He tore his away, trying to think how to begin his conversation with God. It seemed that every time he tried to pray lately, the Lord was not there. He was just talking to himself.

After what seemed like an eternity, she murmured, "Our Father, who art in heaven."

Thankful for anything that might guide his thoughts, Cromwell licked his lips and prayed with her. "Hallowed be thy name."

"Thy kingdom come," their voices found harmony, "Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven."

"Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses." Cromwell faltered, and Anne carried on alone: "As we forgive those who trespass against us."

"And lead us not into temptation," Cromwell said gruffly before Anne's lilt joined him. "But deliver us from evil."

Anne opened her eyes, glanced sideways at Cromwell, whose head was turned slightly toward her. Eyes met. The ending had not been formally introduced yet, but Henry had been saying it for years. "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Forever and ever."

Cromwell broke the gaze, turning his head away. "Amen."

Anne's hand came up limply, formed the sign of the cross, above her forehead to below her heart, touching each shoulder. "Amen."

The silence was heavy. Cromwell sought a comment that would somehow validate his presence. "How is your lip, Your Majesty?"

She narrowed her eyes, not bothering to acknowledge the question. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see…" he trailed off.

"Me? How I do? D'you not have innocent men to question?" Anne spat, then collected herself, pulled herself back into the serenity she had just gained through prayer. "Master Cromwell, I know not what to say to you if I am not to say harsh things."

"Say harsh things, then."

Her face scrunched in incredulity. "Why are you here?" she demanded again.

"I wanted to see you."

Anne laughed then, a sharp, ringing laugh. "Here I am. Dressed in my finest state, alone, in the middle of the night. I hope I do not disappoint you."

Cromwell shook his head. "You do not."

"Does it trouble you?" she asked, sitting back on her heels, purple velvet billowing further up around her. "To accuse those men whom you know to be innocent?"

"I do not know them to be innocent."

She glared at him. "You do."

"No."

"Have you gone mad?" she asked him bluntly. "Honestly, Master Cromwell, are you well? Everyone handles me with feather-light touches, waiting for me to descend into lunacy, but perhaps we should all keep one finger on Master Secretary." She waited for a reaction, but he was silent. "You truly think those men are guilty?"

"It's possible," he allowed with a shrug.

Anne's mouth dropped open a little, real shock, not drama. "It's not true," she told him softly, then again, pleading, "Master Cromwell, it's not true." He studied the floor. "You know – you do not really think that of me," she insisted.

Cromwell seemed to retreat into himself. "I think nothing."

"You do think," she insisted, "I know you do, because you told me – you told me that you think about it, too. So you must, you must think." She wanted to slap herself for caring about what this man thought of her. She cleared her throat. "Perhaps you try to think nothing so you will have no scruples. No conscience. Not that you have one anyway. But you are an intelligent man, and surely you see the irony. Accusing men, interrogating them, trying to prove that they have committed the act that, in fact, you have committed."

He pushed himself close to her, heedless of the velvet that crunched under his knees, and felt alarm that she seemed far less intimidated than any male courtier he had interviewed thus far. "Stop it."

In a flash, she was the old Anne again, eyes glittering, a slow smile turning up one side of her mouth. "It troubles you," she assured him. "Despite your reputation, you are human. And it troubles you. And you think about it. D'you think about it while you ask them questions? D'you fill the chinks of the stories with details from your own memory?"

He looked down. Two long fingers grazed his gold chain of office. He pushed her hand away. "No," he mumbled.

"Why are you here? I can offer you no absolution." He was silent. "It dances through your mind, whatever you do, it haunts you. You cannot escape it," she whispered knowingly.

"Can you?" The question was barely distinguishable in the strangled sound that escaped him. One finger touched the gold chain again, tentatively, the touch almost childlike.

"No. I fear it, I fear everything, remember, I told you, last night," Anne rambled, staring at his gold chain. When had they become so close? He knelt on top of her skirts.

"I remember." At this distance, he could see the delicate carvings on the crown she wore. Her hair looked reddish in the firelight.

"Last night, I thought… I was afraid, but then, when…" she stopped herself. "Were you thinking about it then?" Her voice was low, soft, like a caress.

Unable to stop himself, Cromwell trailed the back of his hand over the skin between her shoulder and neck. He thought he might buckle at the question. "Yes."

Anne tightened her grip on the gold links, giving a gentle tug. "Is that why you came?"

"Tell me to stop," he whispered. His mouth followed his hand, and soon his lips were on her shoulder, his tongue running over the sharp bone of the joint.

The queen chuckled. "My word means nothing anymore. All influence is in your hands. For thine is the kingdom."

He could not think what to say; he was barely even listening to what she was saying.

As he kissed her neck, she gave a sigh: "This is why you came, isn't it?"

"Yes." The answer was lost in her skin. Anne dipped her head and their mouths met.

They were both lost at once, and he had her by the shoulders, forcing her close to him and pushing her head back. The gold crown shifted; it fell; a dull thud as it hit the floor, protected by velvet. Anne's hands were not against his chest. They curled against her own heart, fists covering her collarbones. The first kiss was long, deep, fearless. Cromwell pulled back, taking a ragged gulp of air.

"I did not mean to come here," he offered. He wondered if she was aware it was a lie.

"It hardly matters now," Anne replied, eyes downcast. "You should go."

He nodded. "I should." He got on both feet, stepping back from her, his weight off the now scuffed purple gown. "Tell me to go."

"You should go," Anne repeated. "You should."

He stared down at her. "But you do not tell me so."

"I tell you what you should do."

Cromwell reached out, ran his finger down her nose, over her lips. Anne's eyes drifted shut. He grazed her chin, his fingertip trying to memorize her angles and curves. He wondered when someone had last touched her like this. "But not what you want me to do?"

She did not answer.

"We are damned anyway," he murmured, holding out his hands. She placed all ten of her fingers in his, let him help her to her feet. There was a clink as the crown rolled off her skirts and landed on the stone floor. She stood level with him. "We're damned as it is," he repeated.

"I know." This time her lips found his neck first, pulling at the white collar, peeling away the linen. Cromwell gripped her hands as his knees weakened. How many times had he imagined this, prayed for the strength to ignore the fantasies?

"Stop," Cromwell tried weakly.

"You don't want me to," Anne informed him, her lips finding his earlobe.

An almost-growl escaped from his throat. Cromwell tightened his grip on her hands and led her away from the spot where they had spoken with God. "The closet?" he murmured urgently, his lips almost against her ear. She shivered perceptibly at his breath on her neck.

"This one," she whispered back. The cedar closet was filled with gowns, nothing but gowns; no other garments had been deemed worthy to share the space. The gowns hung from elaborate systems of pegs on the walls, designed exclusively for the queen by the royal carpenters, and every gown stored there smelt of cedar for the entire day that she wore it. Its scent assaulted them as Anne pushed the door open. Cromwell hustled in behind her, closing the door with on/e hand while easing her back against the wall. Darkness surrounded them, got between them. He felt himself falling into heady anonymity. His fingers slid over her face, his tongue pushed its way into her mouth, and the slight breathy sigh that Anne gave in the darkness was worth every sleepless hour that had taunted him, every bit of consternation and doubt and guilt.

"I've thought of this near every moment," he babbled. "I've hardly been able to go an hour without thinking of it."

"I – I could not erase the remembrances, either." Their hands were everywhere, pushing, tugging at clothes. Cromwell hated women's clothing, he really did. Even when his wife wore simple dresses, he found them tedious and unnecessary. One could never seem to find the woman under all the layers and laces. For lack of a better option, Cromwell traced the curve of Anne's chest as it rose and fell above the square neckline of her bodice. "God forgive me," Anne sighed.

"And me." Cromwell leaned against her, kissing her again, pressing her against the layers of gowns that lined the walls. He could not suppress his desire to surround her, possess her, even if just for a moment. His fists bunched in the skirts of her gown, pulling them up, but there was more underneath. Between kisses, Cromwell struggled with armloads of heavy fabric. Anne scoffed a little against his lips. Her hands were in his hair and she pulled him closer, her arms tugging insistently in a way that his wife's never had. Pinning all the fabric between their bodies, his hand found its way to her legs. Silky ribbons, cool to the touch, greeted his fingers. "Stockings today, madam?"

His eyes had adjusted to the dark sufficiently for him to see the confused expression that crossed her face. "Stockings?"

"You were wearing none, the day – that day," he explained, hooking a finger inside the garter and running it along her inner thigh. He felt her muscle tense from the sensation.

"Oh," she said breathlessly, "I had been changing, and I…"

"I've been guessing," he cut her off as he found the tail of one garter ribbon and pulled it, releasing the bow and freeing one thigh, "what colour stockings you were wearing. Every time I've seen you, I've guessed. I've driven myself mad wondering." The confession tumbled from his lips as he stroked her legs, which he had vowed and feared he would never touch again.

"You run the kingdom, and you're undone by stocking colours?" she kissed him, her tongue finding his lower lip just like last time.

His hand moved up and found her, pushing into her without hesitation, and she arched against him. "What drives you mad?" he murmured, his fingers steadily in and out of her, before kissing her open mouth so she could moan into his. His thumb moved above his other fingers, remembering her body as though he touched it every night.

"This," she whimpered. "How often do you do this to women?"

"Never, since my wife – although," he paused, pushing his fingers deeper into her, "Elizabeth Seymour and I shared an unusual moment the other evening."

"Oh? You took her to bed?" Anne's eyes opened, and she asked the question in a tone that was ever so slightly clipped.

He shook his head, moving his mouth back to her neck. "Sweet Lord, no. She wants me to marry her."

"Lissie? Well. She is an intelligent, beautiful young woman."

"Lovely girl. I've no interest." He ran his tongue along the edge of her bodice, swirling his fingers inside her. His cuff was getting wet.

"Did you… did you do this to her?" Anne's voice was low, but both could hear that there was a hard edge under the disinterested tone.

At that, he straightened, cupped her skull and looked her in the eyes, which shone even in the darkness. "Never. Nor will I ever."

Anne regarded him evenly, almost sadly. She could have been enraged, lust-ridden, or indifferent. Too late, Anne had learnt to arrange her face. She swallowed down his vow, his vow of never, that he would never do this to a woman who meant nothing, a vow that he made to a queen whom he would shortly unseat. Whose false lovers he had rounded up and locked away in the Tower, just over this past day, and now he stood here with his own fingers inside her, vowing that he had not done so with another woman, and would not. It was inconceivable. Ridiculous. "Absurd," Anne half-commented, half-moaned, her voice pitching up on the second syllable.

"Absurd?" Cromwell felt her writhing against him, hardly more than a warm shadow.

"All of it," she whispered. "It's all absurd."

Cromwell paused, pulling his fingers out of her. He inclined his head to one side as he stepped back. "No saving it now." Before she knew it, Cromwell was on his knees in front of her, pushing the bundle of fabric into her hands, and his tongue was between her legs. Anne almost screamed at the sudden sensation, startling in the darkness, and she twisted her head. Face buried in a rough embroidered gown to her right, Anne squeezed her eyes shut and tried to memorize the pleasure of this sensation. His mouth worked over her sex, up and down, tongue and lips searching her as if hers was the first female body he had ever tasted. Against Anne's will, she pictured him doing this to Lissie, naked on her back in a proper bed, wine on the bedside table and a roaring fire on the hearth, as it should be, the intimate wet noises mingling with heedless moans and shouts. Anne's fingers bunched tighter around her own skirts. The other hand slid down over her exposed pelvis and found the back of Cromwell's head, where it rested, feeling his skin throb at a beat that matched her racing pulse. Not since his wife, he had told her. And never to Lissie.

Suddenly, Cromwell grew fanatical, wrapping his mouth around the spot that his thumb had teased before. His fingers pushed back inside her, timing the thrusts with flicks of his tongue. Anne's knees weakened. The pleasure began to come in waves, small, shallow waves at first. Each wave reached further through her limbs as a tide beginning to come in. Time froze, utterly froze, as he drew her up and down. Without meaning to, she bunched her fingers into his hair, curly and dark like her own. Finally, she felt him pushing her toward it, and his fervour increased as she arched toward him, stretching onto her toes, small muffled sounds escaping to his ears. His mouth worked faster, but his fingers slowed down, drawing the final process out. Her body tensed with the effort of keeping quiet as the peak arrived. She strained further against him, her breath a series of sharp sighs and gasps, Cromwell brought both hands to her hips, steadying her. He felt her sink into herself as she shuddered, her gown shifting loosely on her body.

One articulate syllable from her: "Ah." He stood again and kissed her lips, pleasantly surprised at how cold they were compared with the rest of her hot skin. She opened her mouth and sucked his tongue against hers. He nearly collapsed with arousal.

Without a word, Anne put one of his hands back between her legs. He felt her own hands below his waistline, finding their way inside his jacket, which was a much simpler garment than anything she wore. She was more adroit than last time. As she all but tore into his hose, Cromwell murmured, "Are you – it might be painful –"

"It won't." He was freed in a moment, and both her hands were around him, guiding him toward her. "Now, right now."

He was inside her with almost no effort, palming one thigh and lifting it to find the right angle. "Jesus Christ," he whispered gruffly, leaning them back against the wall again. He knew from the outset that it could not last. He had been near to bursting before she put her hands on him; the wet warmth, the euphoria in fulfilled desires, the tingling of his tongue from her licking her own juices off it, he could only handle so much. Trying desperately to prolong his time inside her, knowing it was his last chance, that every moment here must be internalized to last him the rest of his life, Cromwell wrapped both his arms around Anne. He tightened his grip, kissing her gently, softly. An emotion that could not be described as anything other than bliss surged through him when she struggled to snake her arms around his neck, ignoring his chain in favour of his person. Had it only been last night that he had thought to himself, _I had better remember what it feels like to have my arms around a woman,_ for he felt certain it would not happen again?

"I want to cry out," she told him.

"Against my shoulder," he mumbled, burying his own face in the plush gown to the right of her face.

"Deeper," she begged. He might have muttered _yes,_ but neither was sure. Anne stifled a moan as his thrusts became desperate. She gripped him tighter and kissed his neck. He let out a series of shaken, muffled groans as he climaxed, heart thundering, crushing her against the wall, making her almost disappear into the gowns, wishing he could make them both disappear. Praying to the Lord to let this moment never end. But it did end, with queen and minister collapsed together against the wall in her darkened closet.

Anne made no move to disentangle herself. She breathed deeply, sweat and cedar, and ran her fingers through Cromwell's hair. When he found the strength to move his head from its pillow of textiles, Cromwell pressed a row of kisses from Anne's shoulder to her neck, repeating the action that had started this whole mess. Her head nestled over his shoulder, Cromwell kissed Anne's hair, her ear, her temple. She pulled back and they kissed, long and slow, tongues touching in a comforting way. In this dark room where nothing else existed, Cromwell kissed Anne the way he had kissed Lissie, stolen kisses, lips meeting and parting in ways that he did not deserve and should not pursue, but never had he felt kisses like these before. They spoke. Without the use of his throat, Cromwell let his lips confess everything he could never say to Anne; _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry;_ _you are beautiful; I regret it, all of it, I regret everything but this, and that other time before; and I regret what is to come._ He hoped she understood. She was fluent in foreign languages. Perhaps she spoke the unspoken.

After several minutes, the kisses faded, and Cromwell stepped back to right his hose. "No torn clothing this time," Anne commented lightly, straightening her sleeves. Her skirts swished effortlessly back to the floor as though they had never been lifted at all.

"None."

As though escorting her to a banquet, Cromwell led Anne back to her bedchamber. They faced each other silently; his mouth opened, closed. After a deafening silence, he cleared his throat. "I should go."

Anne peered up through long eyelashes, and when she smirked he saw that her lips were rosy and chapped. "A familiar suggestion." She stood her ground. Cromwell stepped back, still tasting her on his lips. He made a slight bow.

"Majesty."

"Master Secretary."

He made it to her presence chamber before he heard slippered feet coming after him.

"Wait – Master Cromwell, wait…" Anne tugged at his jacket like a child, not like a woman who had experienced the power of his lust only moments before. He turned in surprise.

"They'll – I'll go to the Tower, they'll come for me, soon?" As she spoke, her arms wrapped around her middle as if she was cold. He nodded wordlessly. "Shall I be thrown in a cell?"

Cromwell shook his head slowly. "No. Your rooms are ready."

"I fear the cold. The dampness." She hugged herself tighter.

"It has been considered and prepared," he assured her. "You will have every comfort."

"And the men, the guards at the Tower, when they hear that the king's whore of a wife…" she flinched. "And I am left alone at night-"

He broke in. "No harm will come to you. I promise it."

Anne shook her head, eyes welling up with tears, fear overcoming the serene expression she had worn not four minutes ago. "Master Cromwell, I've heard stories about the guards, the women in the Tower – and if I am tossed aside," she faltered.

"No one would dare. They would face severe punishment."

"Not if I am thought a whore by all, no court would condemn –"

Cromwell stepped toward her, towering over her as she stood as good as barefoot, forcing her to tilt her head back to look up at him. "No court. I'll do it myself. If anyone lays a finger on you, I will carve out his innards with a letter opener."

Her chin quivered, but Anne burst into laughter, harsh, mocking laughter. The sound caught in her throat, perhaps mixed with a sob. She coughed. It was not elegant. "Anyone but the executioner."

Her words stung him in more ways than he cared to explore. His seed was still wet inside his hose. He needed to wash her off of him. Or not. He turned away. Over his shoulder: "Wear a crown tomorrow."

He almost checked when he heard a sniffle, a heartrending whimper. "Yes," Anne rasped after him, "I shall be certain to look my best, Master Cromwell."

**A/N PART II: I had planned for a very long time that I would portray Anne's arrest scene the same way that it was done on the show – with Suffolk and Riche coming for her. I planned why Cromwell would not be there, etc.; now I am thinking of the possibilities that would arise from having Cromwell conduct the arrest. Please, readers, if you would be so kind as to review – let me know what you'd like to see and why. I am open to both possibilities now and am trying to gauge what would work better. The interaction would be tense and interesting, but it could also be a good scene for Riche/Suffolk and for Cromwell to stay behind at the palace. Let me know what you think =D!**

**UP NEXT:**

**Anne's arrest, George's arrest, and the Seymours at Wolf Hall – let's see how different they are at home from in the country? …**

She bundled herself in sheets and wriggled beneath heavy woolen blankets, blissfully at comfort. Her thoughts wandered, in the way that thoughts usually do before sleep; five minutes or an hour may have passed when, in a foggy half-asleep realization, Lissie sensed someone entering her bedchamber.

Her eyes flicked open: the moon was high in the sky. It was the middle of the night.

The door opened softly, barely creaking on the hinges. Lissie sighed as the figure padded across the floor – clearly barefoot – and crawled into bed behind her. A light touch on her shoulder, wrapped in layers of bedlinens, and she turned to look at him. "What are you doing here?" she whispered.

"I missed you," he whispered back, a sad smile on his face.

Lissie turned away. "You are not welcome."

"Lissie, don't be angry with me," he begged. "Not now. We've gone through so much…"

She punched the pillow next to her head. "Yes, we have. And I hope you think it was worth it."

"It will be. I trust it will be. It has to be." His voice was quiet. He slid across the bed toward her.

"Go away." Lissie squeezed her eyes shut even though she did not face him.

"Elizabeth, please. This has not been all joy and rapture for me either. I need you. I need my sister."

"You have another sister. As if you could forget." But her tone was weak.

Edward propped his head on a pillow behind hers, so he could see her profile in the dark. He put an arm around her and gave her a gentle squeeze. "It is not the same," he whispered in her ear.

"And a wife," she reminded him, settling against him in spite of herself.

"None of them are like you." He placed his palm over her hand where it rested on the mattress.

She could smell the soap he used to wash his hair. The heat of his shoulders behind her was a comfort, ironic in the face of the fear and tension that had been the driving force of their relationship for the past months. She sighed again, a relieved exhalation this time. "It's been a long time," she murmured.

"You are a woman now." He said as if in wonder.

"Everywhere but where it counts," she chided.

He wrapped his fingers around her hand. "It would not matter. You will always be pure as the day you were born." She smiled in the dark.

…

….

…

….. **wait, what?**


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: Welp, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update! That's not nice of me. Happy holidays, and I hope my new chapter is a treat worthy of yuletide joy! =D**

**EVERYONE: From here on out we will be moving at a faster pace, toward the trials of the men and Anne herself. I'm going to be rediscovering and resolving a number of storylines in the next few chapters. Is there anything you really want to make sure gets addressed? Any character you definitely want to see? Any plotline you want me to pick up again? Let me know.**

**Another question, or poll, for my readers – do you like these longer chapters? Do you feel that the quantity/quality ratio is worth the wait? Or would you prefer more frequent, but shorter, chapter updates? Sometimes I am at 5-6,000 words and I don't have a chance to sit down to this story for 10 days, which delays the whole process. But I aim for around 8-9,000 words per chapter. Let me know what you think.**

**Claire, welcome! I'm glad you liked my first chapter and I hope you are able to continue reading. Thank you for the compliments and happy holidays!**

**Oh, Louisa, I'm so glad to hear you were pleased with the last chapter. And thank youuu for the comments on the "love" (ish) scene – those are super awkward to write and I'm never sure if they read awkwardly or not, so I appreciate the feedback on how the chemistry works on paper. Please let me know what you think of this chapter; there's more coming soon!**

**Hello, guest! Endless gratitude for the time and effort of writing a review. I really appreciate that and hope to keep earning it =D I was trying to write her ladies as a band of wayward and naïve spies, trying to roll with the politically astute men at court and adorably unaware how over their heads they are (a little eleventh-hour, girls). The arrests did not come out AT ALL like I planned them – but I am actually really happy with how they read. The title was something I came up with because of the confusing state of the Lord's Prayer at this point, especially as the tensions with the Dissolutions are rising and Cromwell is faced with the task of ousting the religiously radical queen. The Reformation is in a very tough stage right now. I didn't initially think I would have Anne and Cromwell say it together, but once the opportunity presented itself I couldn't deny how well it worked. =D As for the Seymours… things are about to get interesting, but there will be more questions than answers, if I do my job correctly. You be the judge! Happy holidays!**

**Alyson: you are bad for my ego. You really are. I'm so glad you found the last chapter compelling. Wolf Hall is a wonderful precursor to having a multi-faceted view of Cromwell and I'm flattered that you see anything approaching that level of characterization in my own story. I'm LOVING Nan, did not expect her to turn into this complex of a character but I really like how she's taking on a storyline and personality of her own. I'm trying to demonstrate how she's learned to comport herself with the severity and composure of Anne. Speaking of composure, that moment with the jealousy over Lissie was one of my favorite things in the whole chapter. I wanted it to be so begrudging and uncomfortable, but at the same time a real moment of envy; not only over the physical connection, which neither of them wants to acknowledge, but maybe even over the fact that Lissie is young, and single, and most importantly, free? I loveeee Lissie. Adore her. She's going to become a big deal as the story draws to an end. Yay conflict! Thank you for your compliment on the desperation being palpable – that was a big goal of mine. I want them frantic for each other but also mutually apprehensive. The threat about the guards was probably my other favorite moment, honestly. =D**

**CrystalSearcher, LOL thanks for the flailing review yet again! 1.) So glad you liked it. I hope it was as good upon the second reading. 2.) I agree, and although it's a little abbreviated due to how the scene wound up unfolding with Anne and the household (I swear this stuff writes itself), I like the Riche/Suffolk dynamic. Cromwell isn't together enough to arrest her, you're totally right. But now the question… when will he come face-to-face with her again? 3.) Did you? I only saw it coming like 2 chapters ago. But is it incest if they're not DOING anything? Hum. You be the judge. 4.) *flail-dance***

**Rae, you make me laugh so much! Oh, no, I just realized I'm publishing this on a day when you don't have school. Forgive! Seymours… idk, that family's a hot mess. We'll see how that works out for them. I'm glad you liked the, ahem, private scene, and I love that you love the protective Cromwell. He only exists for a flash here and there, but he's great. Let me know how you feel about the way I handled the arrest scene. I'm eager to know if you think the dynamic worked. =D Happy holidays!**

3 May

i.

Morning

George Boleyn rubbed at his eyes in the chilly pale sunlight. He sat up in bed. The palace seemed deathly still. He had had such dreams before, where he strolled the halls of Greenwich only to find that he was alone and abandoned, unprotected and unaccompanied by all. Unloved by all. He hated those dreams.

He looked around, felt for his wife under the heavy coverlets and found nothing. He squinted, patted the mattress again. He cleared his throat. "Jane?"

She never rose before he did. He had not overslept; where was she? Was she ill?

"Wife?"

He got out of bed, shivering as his bare feet hit bare stone, and ran a hand through his hair. Their bedchamber door was still bolted from the inside. She had not left and could not have drawn a bath for herself. He double-checked the chairs and the little sofa that sprawled beneath Jane's favourite window. She was not there. Dubiously, he yanked the bed coverings back, part of him believing she must be in the bed because there was no other place she could be.

He went toward Jane's closet. It was not enormous, certainly not big enough to qualify as another room, but perhaps she was in there choosing what to wear on this morning. It was out of character, for sure. Although he had made practice of spending time in others' beds, George Boleyn returned to his wife's side nightly, and in ten years of marriage she had rarely been on her feet before he was.

He knocked at the door, which was closed firmly. "Jane?" he asked the door. "Are you in there?"

No response. George's forehead wrinkled. Had his wife evaporated into the air? She _had_ been here when he had gotten into bed last night, had she not? He cracked the door open and there was no acknowledging movement. He pushed it and saw her at once, a dark shape folded over itself in the far corner. He stepped toward her and checked: if she was ill, he should keep his distance.

"Jane?" he called. "Wife. Sweetheart, what are you doing?"

"Nothing," she replied quietly. He could make out no movement. His eyes were not accustomed to the darkness in the closet, which had no window.

"Are you well?"

"I…" she trailed off. "I fear not."

He took a step back. "Shall I fetch the doctor?"

Jane shook her head. "No. I will be fine."

"Come… come back to bed." Creeping alarm was tugging at him. She was behaving very unusually. It seemed as though the court had been turned upside down in the past few days. He came into the closet, finally. He had been trying to make good on his promise to his uncle that he would be kinder to his wife.

As he crouched beside her, Jane looked at him. Her small, dark eyes were like bullets in the darkness. "Do I look well?"

"I can hardly tell in the dark," he responded honestly.

"Generally," she amended. "Generally, do I look well?"

An odd smirk crossed his features. "Do you fish for compliments, wife? You are an attractive woman."

"Thank you." She smiled a little. "I find you an attractive man."

He chuckled. _Most_ _do_, he thought. Jane said the most dim-witted things sometimes. He had been trying to think of her lately as someone younger than she was, to excuse her dullness and immaturity thus. No one would accuse him of being a husband who did not try, he had resolved. "And I thank you. Now please me and come back to bed."

She let him take her hand, but she did not move yet. "I… I am sorry we have not yet had a child, my lord."

George almost sighed, but he stopped himself. This was no moment to snap at her. "Well, sweetheart, what activities did you think I hoped for us to do when we get back into bed?"

"I fear I will be past my bleeding soon," Jane continued. "And I so wanted to give you a child… a son… many sons, daughters too." Her eyes implored him in the darkness.

Moved and startled, George touched her cheek. She sounded like a woman in mourning. "Is this why you've hidden yourself away? You are not past your time yet, not for years, Jane," he insisted. "You are too young to be speaking thus. Your body will bear our sons yet."

Jane's face scrunched from forehead to chin, and she buried it in her palms. "It's too late," she whimpered. "It's too late."

"Shhh," George attempted to comfort her despite his growing unease. "Hush, sweetheart. We've got so much time, yet. So many evenings and opportunities. We are no perfect match, I grant you that, and you'll have to learn to be more accepting of my personal ventures, but we can have a happy life together."

Her concern at having disappointed him was endearing. Why could she not have been this pliant all along? She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. "I am sorry if I have made you unhappy," she whispered. "I did not mean to."

"Marriage is not meant to be a happy thing," he teased. "We are much better off than many married couples I know. Let us rejoice."

His lips found hers, and his tongue came out to lick at the warm, salty tears around her mouth. He found he quite liked the taste. She melted against him a little, murmuring, "let us try to put a child in my belly."

George smiled against her lips. All at once he hoisted her into his arms and kicked their way out of her closet. He kissed her before dropping her onto the bed with a flourish. "Let us make a number of tries, eh?"

"Yes," Jane agreed, shivering as his cold fingers touched her skin. He peeled off her shift. "As many as possible on this morning."

George found that his wife's sorrow made for much more joyous coupling than did her nagging; after a decade of marriage, in this unimportant encounter on an ordinary morning, he found himself enjoying Jane and accepting their relationship for what it was. Never had she been so conformable to his will, attentive to his priorities. He wondered what had caused her change of heart. As he fell onto her, entering her from the front as he rarely had, George thanked the Lord for having brought his wife to her senses. They made love thrice before George sank, exhausted, on top of Jane. He kissed her breasts before he dozed off, almost certain that he saw tears in his wife's eyes. Probably still upset over their lack of a child. But if Jane could sustain this new approach to wifehood, he thought, he would have her as often as it took for her to conceive a house full of sons.

When he woke again, the sun had climbed high in the sky and Jane had not moved a muscle. He started up on the mattress, worried that he had slept the day away. Jane's eyes fluttered open sleepily, and her usual frown had been exchanged in favour of an expression of pure bliss. She looked almost like a saint on the bed, if he could picture the way a saint would look after lovemaking.

"Must you go?" she yawned.

"Mmmmm," George replied as he stretched. "We both should. It's late."

Jane stretched her body as well, and rolled over onto her stomach. "Do you not have just a moment more?"

He watched as she positioned herself in the way she knew he liked best. "Just a moment? Do you underestimate me, wife?" he chided in reminiscence of their usual bedtime games.

"I can't recall…"

"Those three times we just had?"

She arched her back. "One more should remind me," she teased.

He was aroused just watching the way she unfolded her naked body. Where had this creature been for the past ten years? "Oh, wife," he sighed as he crawled behind her and pushed into her without preamble. "I shall make sure to remind you more often."

After they climaxed and collapsed together, George got dressed without washing off the evidence of their lovemaking. He gave his wife a wink that weakened her knees as he left her, still naked, under the sheets of their marriage bed. When the door closed behind him, Jane closed her eyes and prayed to Jesus that she had conceived George Boleyn's child that morning, for she would never have another chance.

ii.

When Nan came into the queen's rooms, her mistress was already dressed. Nan stopped short. "Majesty," she said, curtsying. "Am I tardy?"

"No," Anne replied, not taking her eyes from her own reflection. "I have not slept. I've been trying on gowns all the night."

Nan considered and rejected all the incredulous replies she could make before asking, "and is this Your Majesty's favourite?"

Anne considered. "No, but I think it is the most regal. I've picked out that crown –" a crystal-studded silver filigree tiara, taller than the crowns she usually preferred "and need some slippers."

She was wearing the gown that appeared dark blue in normal light but green in the sunshine, the one that she had suggested the royal seamstresses assemble outside. It was plain, straight, and singular. As Nan neared, she saw that the queen had laced herself into the gown. The fact was clear in that it was unevenly tightened and the laces were inconsistently overlapped; when Nan laced the queen, it was right over left at all times. But how often did queen consorts dress themselves? To Anne's credit, the sleeves had been attached flawlessly, a hard feat to do on a gown that one is wearing at the time.

"All I can do is a simple knot," the queen sighed as her chief lady-in-waiting set to work on another of her creations. "Or brush my hair out and leave it down."

"Queens are not responsible for knowing how to dress their hair, my lady," Nan reminded her gently. "I should think you've got enough cares of your own. This is my function, the reason for my existence."

Anne smiled. "To twist my hair?"

Nan met her eyes in the mirror. "To make you look every inch the queen you are."

"You do the best that anyone could." Anne paused. "D'you think you will be invited to remain at court once Jane Seymour is queen?"

Nan's hands did not so much as falter. She had considered this, and she knew she could speak honestly with her mistress. "I would be surprised if I were asked to stay on the basis of allegiance," she said quietly, "for everyone knows where my loyalty lies."

"You could conform."

"And if forced, I think I would. But I cannot see the new queen wishing to keep me in her rooms. I would be unsurprised if most of us are dismissed. On the other hand," she rambled on, "if Master Cromwell…"

Nan's voice drifted away and their eyes met in the mirror again. Anne's lips rolled together before she resumed her neutral expression. "If Master Cromwell?" she prompted.

Her lady-in-waiting shook her head.

"If Master Cromwell thinks to repay all of you for providing testimony against me?"

Nan did not move.

"I do not blame you."

"How could you not? We are supposed to be your protectors."

One cheek twitched in an ironic smile. "I thought a woman's husband was supposed to be her protector." Anne sighed. "Things are different at court. You must not tell me that you thought I had no idea."

"I knew," Nan admitted, finally reaching for a handful of pins. "I just… I wanted to – if there was one thing I could take back…"

"It is not your fault."

Nan smiled sadly, her eyes on Anne's emerging coif. "Whose is it then?"

"A good question." Anne ran her finger over her lips. "Perhaps as a sinner I can expect no better."

"Your Majesty is a pious and virtuous woman."

"I have sinned as much as the average Christian woman," Anne said firmly, "and many times more if one is to count the sins committed on my behalf as even partially mine."

"You mustn't talk like that." Nan was surprised at the sternness of her voice.

Anne handed her a few more pins, seeing that she had run out. "It is the truth."

"Bite your tongue if you must, my lady," Nan said wearily. For the first time, the queen could see the utter exhaustion on her lady's face. "Do whatever you must to make it easier on yourself. But no talk of sinning, and certainly not of your own sins. You must have a care."

The queen smiled and covered the smile with one palm. "You are right. Should leave all the work to our most industrious Master Cromwell."

Nan looked at the queen's reflection in the mirror and tugged at the knot she had created, adding a few more pins with careful precision. "'Industrious' may not be my adjective of choice for that man."

"Slandering, traitorous, unethical, ruthless," Anne said boredly. Her head lolled to the side. "How will I ever manage without you?"

"You won't." Nan warmed a drop of Egyptian oil between her palms and used it to smooth the hair against the queen's scalp; a polishing touch.

They both heard the patter of feet in the outer rooms as the other ladies began to trickle in. "I shall have to. They won't let you come to plait my hair in the Tower, my dear." Anne smirked.

Nan smiled back, and the queen noticed how similar their expressions were. That was new. "There are many ways into and out of that place," Nan said lightly, meeting Anne's eyes for a moment and then flicking away. She went off in search of slippers as the Sheltons came in to bid their mistress a fair morning.

iii.

Charles Brandon had not expected to walk into an ambush; when he entered Master Secretary's office, it was to find Cromwell seated with Richard Riche. The two men faced him, dossiers in hand, as though he was about to be judged before a jury of peers. Brandon's eyes slid between the two men. "Cromwell. Riche."

"Your Grace," Cromwell greeted him with a blank smile. "I've a personal favour to ask of you."

Brandon's nostrils flared a little. "A personal favour?"

"Yes, Your Grace. A political commission, but a personal favour." The bland expression stayed in place.

The duke looked to and fro impatiently. Riche had yet to speak or move. Upon closer inspection, the Solicitor General looked awash with trepidation: bloodshot eyes, mottled nose, hunched posture. But he kept a steady countenance nonetheless. "Out with it, Cromwell."

The secretary placed five fingertips on his dossier. "I wonder if you would do me the service of assisting Master Riche here in the apprehension of Queen Anne."

"The queen?" Suffolk repeated.

"She is to be conducted to the Tower this morning."

Brandon's lips parted in surprise. "You want me to put her there?"

Cromwell jabbed a thumb at his quiet companion. "A joint effort betwixt yourself, Your Grace, and Solicitor General Riche. Alas, I have made the trip to the Tower more than a few times in the past day, and will conduct more of Her Majesty's partners in lechery there yet. For this most notable apprehension, I thought Your Grace, as the dearest friend of His Majesty, would make a suitable supervisor."

"And report to His Majesty every detail," the duke smiled. "I understand."

Cromwell held his gaze, meaning infusing his every syllable. "And with the public display of Your Grace as apprehender of the queen, it will be clear that the charges against her have the endorsement of the nobility. I am not so cruel as to send His Grace the Duke of Norfolk along with you," he chuckled.

"I wager to say that the nobility, in its entirety," Brandon enunciated, "will condone the legal action against the king's whore of a wife."

Riche looked wearily between duke and secretary. Cromwell made no comment on Brandon's forecast. Instead, he opened his dossier to find the parchment that had been drawn up for the arrest of the Queen of England. The long sheet was rolled from both ends and the ribbons remained untied. Cromwell held it out to the duke. "I hope Your Grace does not mind to do this errand as a personal favour to me."

Charles Brandon's face broke into a boyish grin as he stepped forward to take the indictment. "Oh, Cromwell. I've never liked you better."

iv.

Anne found herself trembling as her ladies sat around her with embroidery. Their chairs formed a circle together. Anne touched her crown to be sure it was secure enough that she could bow her head to focus on the linen. Bess Dormer caught her eye and offered a shy smile. The queen tried to smile back. "Never did figure out which man it was that you admired, Mistress Dormer," she said softly.

"No one important, my lady."

Anne watched as Nan turned her head to look at Mistress Dormer. The two ladies made eye contact and then looked away mutually. "I am sorry I could not help," she offered. Bess just smiled and nodded.

The Sheltons sat close together, working on a large piece of linen – what would, given the opportunity, become a tapestry. Their elbows bumped and settled. Madge's full lips looked bigger than usual today, and even Mary had dark craters under her normally lively eyes.

The queen tried to thread her needle but failed. Her stomach turned. She had not gotten ill this morning, and was living in fear that she would begin heaving in front of her ladies. She was weak; she knew it. She was exhausted. She was ready for this to be over.

"Pardon me, ladies," she murmured as she got to her feet clumsily. She jostled Nan's chair as she bolted for her bedchamber, closing the door behind her, and rushed toward the chamber pot beside her bed. She retched into it as quietly as possible. Nan had laced her loosely again this morning; the inflating of her ribs was not as painful as it might have been. Anne washed out her mouth and was about to get to her feet when a fresh wave of nausea pushed her back onto her knees, this time more forceful than the last. A hand tapped on the door.

"Majesty?"

"A moment of peace, ladies," she called back. When she was sure the illness was past, Anne rinsed her mouth again and got to her feet. She looked around her empty bedchamber and thought to herself that this may be the last time she was ever in it alone. Sadly, she brought her palm to her lips and blew a kiss into the air.

When she resettled herself among her ladies, their concerned gazes sticking in her like stakes, Anne said a short prayer for whoever was coming to arrive shortly. She could not stand to wait like this much longer.

She heard a growling stomach and knew it was not hers; she had no appetite. It occurred to her then that none of her ladies had tried to insist that she eat breakfast. Finally, too late, they had accepted the fact that she would not eat when she did not wish to. But had they abstained from food as well?

Moments of heavy silence stretched into long minutes, a quarter hour, and the queen lost track. It was nearly midday when an uncoordinated onslaught of boots could be heard in her outer chamber. The footsteps were quick, purposeful; Anne could make out their rhythm in the otherwise silent royal apartments.

Nan began to breathe heavily, quickly. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying.

"Keep yourself together," Anne hissed at her, harsher than she meant it. She cast a glance around the circle, but no one would meet her eyes. "All of you. You mustn't fall apart. You must be my strength in these moments."

Madge sniffled loudly.

"Madge, please, for I've almost no strength of my own." Anne twisted the linen handkerchief she had been embroidering between her fingers, pulling on it, and dropped her unthreaded needle to the floor. "Ladies, look at me."

Four heads swiveled toward her at once, like choir boys to their music master. Anne had a fleeting vision of herself, arms raised, conducting this ballad of her own downfall.

"You'll all be all right." Her eyes filled with tears and she nodded as reassuringly as she could. "It's all going to be all –" the group jumped as the door to her presence chamber slammed open. All five women turned to see the men approaching. It was Master Riche, looking very similar to Nan in condition, and a smug Charles Brandon. His expression reminded Anne immediately of the smile he had given her that day last week or maybe two weeks ago, when he had knelt and kissed her wedding ring. She blinked, gaze to the floor, and took a moment to pull herself together. When she looked back up, she was ready. She cleared her throat to finish her comforting comment to her ladies. "… right. It's all right, ladies."

Suffolk and Riche approached awkwardly. Riche seemed to want to keep his distance, but when the duke continued ahead, the Solicitor General had no option but to follow suit. They positioned themselves just beyond the ladies' closed circle, so that the Sheltons had to twist in their chairs to regard the two men.

Suffolk gazed at all of the ladies in turn, clearly waiting for them to stand and curtsy to him, a dainty chorus of "Your Grace" to welcome him to this occasion. Instead, Anne's household met his eyes steadily. No one spoke.

"Ah-em," Anne tutted. To her private flattery, her ladies responded to the sound of her voice and turned their backs on the men. Mary Shelton swiped up her linen with a flourish. Bess Dormer held her needle high in the air, concentrating on threading it in the most ostentatious way that one could possibly thread a needle. Nan straightened her spine, no longer leaning against the back of her chair, and dropped her embroidery on the floor. She folded her hands together on her knee and stared straight ahead.

Anne made eye contact with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, a former brother-in-law and best friend of her lord and husband. Brandon was a powerful, handsome man. He had spent his life getting what he wanted: women, fortune, power; all were his for the taking. Even the capital sin of marrying Henry's sister without permission had been forgiven. The only challenge to his will and influence throughout his friendship with the king was a dark-haired woman from a family that was, on one side, mercantile and of the barbaric Irish descent; on the other, a disgraced noble house trying to regain its footing. The love of Anne Boleyn had caused Henry to turn his back on Charles. The two had spent many a banquet exchanging cool glances and heated words. He had almost never had a decisive triumph over her. For ten years, she had been the victor. She supposed he counted this occasion as tantamount to the ultimate battle. She would give him no satisfaction. She would be the royalty that she was. She watched as he set and un-set his strong jaw, took a breath, and relaxed his broad shoulders. An angry but amused gleam flickered in his eyes. He knew her for his rival, his match, his adversary.

The queen fixed her face to look as prim and condescending as possible. "My lords," she said lightly, grouping them together and refusing to acknowledge Charles Brandon's rank, "I bid you a fair morning."

"And you, Your Majesty." Riche bowed hastily as if embarrassed. Anne thought to herself that here was a man better suited for a polite, comfortable post as a foreign ambassador in a warm country than a messy career of blood and scheming at her husband's court.

Anne, the corner of her mouth turned upward in the slightest of smirks, blinked at the duke. She waited.

A flash of a sneer crossed Brandon's face; she could have sworn he showed her his teeth. He held up a scroll, unrolled it a short space with both fists. The gesture had been practiced. Brandon was not that graceful. "This," he brandished the document, "is the warrant for your arrest."

He paused for a moment to the words to sink in. Anne smiled a little broader and raised her eyebrows. Mary Shelton tossed her long hair and re-settled in her chair. No one else moved.

Brandon shot an annoyed look at Mary and snapped the scroll closed. "You are charged with committing adultery with Henry Norris, Francis Weston, Mark Smeaton, and William Brereton."

Bess Dormer gave a throaty yawn, and murmured, "excuse me."

Richard Riche was staring at the queen with the same lifeless expression. The corners of his eyes wrinkled a little. Pleasure, she saw. He was pleased at her lack of reaction. The duke looked around the room, clearly on the way to becoming infuriated.

He waved the scroll again. "Smeaton has already confessed his guilt."

Directly in front of him, Madge Shelton let out a nervous giggle. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but the laughter continued – to Anne's own amusement as well. Mary chuckled at her sister, nudging her with an elbow, and Bess Dormer shook her head. She was half-grinning. Nan still did not move, but she arched an eyebrow at the duke.

"What –" the duke broke off, took a moment to get himself under control, and addressed the queen through clenched jaws. "What in God's name are your ladies laughing at. Are they too dull to comprehend the gravity of my words? D'you surround yourself with simpletons so as to feed your own vanity, madam?"

Now Anne let out a little gurgle of laughter, light and cordial as if the duke had proclaimed her the mistress of his heart. "Oh, my lord, for shame," she scolded good-naturedly. She waved a hand at the circle of ladies around her. "You know my household is chosen from the most quality candidates in the kingdom. Their pedigrees, education, and manners are without match among the nobility." She met his eyes, the hellfire of her steady words heating her entire body. "They are simply laughing at your statements to humour you. They know a well-constructed joke when they hear one."

Master Riche barely contained a grin. He fought hard to keep his facial muscles under control while Charles Brandon seethed next to him. The ringing mockery of the queen's profound insult seemed to reverberate in the room. All waited for the duke to speak.

Finally, Charles Brandon turned to his companion. He inclined his head as if to say, _your_ _turn_.

Riche turned to the queen and bowed his head respectfully. "We have come to conduct you to the Tower, there to abide during His Majesty's pleasure."

Anne nodded, smiling. "Ah, I thank you, Master Riche. I wondered when we would come to the point. If that be His Majesty's pleasure, I am more than ready to obey." She stood. Her ladies rose with her. "Ladies, shall we –"

"There is no time to pack any of your clothes or gather your belongings," Charles Brandon interrupted, his voice strangled. "All will be provided for you at the Tower."

She started toward her bedchamber door, thinking that she had been right and she would never be there alone again. "I shall require my own –"

The duke pushed through her ladies and grabbed her by the arm, stopping her. "I said there is no time. The barge awaits."

Anne's ladies stepped back from what they perceived to be a scene. The queen looked from Suffolk's face to his grip on her elbow, and back up again. "I am the Queen of England," she reminded him. "Mister Brandon, this may the beginning of the end, but I am not undone. You would do well to observe the etiquette required of a man of your station. Regardless of these absurd accusations, I will not be made slave to your whims. You will remove your perspirations and wait for a quarter hour until I assemble my luggage." She withdrew her arm and strode into her bedchamber without another word. Her ladies followed. The door closed resolutely in Brandon's face.

v.

Midday

Riche bit harder on his lips to stop himself from smiling. He actually wanted to laugh out loud at the scene before him. The queen had taken her time readying luggage for her imprisonment while he and His Grace had shuffled their feet in her presence chamber, Suffolk seething all the time.

She had sent a maid to duck her head out of the room and suggest to the gentlemen that they summon a few pages, unless they wished to carry her trunks themselves.

There were three trunks in all, filled with Heaven knew what, and Riche watched as the last of them was deposited on the dock. There were also two bundles of linens and a smaller chest, which the queen explained harboured books, parchment, extra candles, and other domestic supplies. The queen's ladies had spent the better part of an hour proposing how to send the trunks to the Tower, and one of the Sheltons had suggested that they simply load the luggage onto one of the royal litters and transport the queen thus as well. At that, Suffolk's jaw had dropped. The effrontery that these women could think to countermand his orders that the queen be conducted to the Tower by barge was infuriating. To Riche, who saw clearly that the queen and her ladies were goading the duke with this whole show, their blustering and clucking was beyond humourous.

Anne stood in the midst of her ladies, wearing a glittering traveling cloak and her equally luminous crown. She made suggestions and commands, every so often turning to the two men who waited a few yards behind to apologize for the delay. She approved at last of the method of packing the luggage on the barge and suddenly realized she may have forgotten the proper soap for bathing. "Bess, would you please check in the smaller chest?" The auburn lady went nodding away while Nan Saville re-checked the trappings on the three trunks.

"By the blood-crusted doublet of Christ," Charles Brandon ground out, rubbing his temple from what was probably a splitting headache. "She is going to her death, not on holiday."

Riche nodded. "I know not how to control her, my lord."

Brandon did not either, as had become clear on the occasions in the past hour when he had tried to assert his authority. The duke reached out and grabbed a passing page. He drew the boy almost against his chest. "Fetch Master Secretary Cromwell here," he snarled before releasing him, "immediately."

"Master Secretary, Your Grace?" Riche asked as the boy dashed toward the Great Hall of Greenwich.

"Cromwell will take care of her," Suffolk murmured. "Best to let the blacksmith's boy get his hands dirty. He knows best, eh?" He jabbed his elbow at Riche's arm.

Riche bit his lip against the many responses that he wanted to make. Why summon Cromwell when Charles Brandon was said to be the flower of manhood among the English nobility?

Cromwell saved Riche from insulting the duke by carrying the insult in his demeanor. He bore down on the group at the dockside, just as Bess Dormer went dashing to the queen's rooms to fetch the soap which had, apparently, been forgotten. The minister wiped a hand over his face. "What on earth is the delay," he demanded, "Your Grace?"

"The queen proves unmanageable." Suffolk set his jaw and glared across the water, refusing to look at Cromwell.

With a grandiose eyeroll for Riche, Cromwell sighed patiently. "Unmanageable, my lord? Have you asked her to get into the barge?"

The duke's ringed hands flitted about in the sunlight. "She and her ladies – they are behaving as farmer's wives, bustling and tutting the hens in the coop," he said disdainfully.

"Coop, Your Grace?" Cromwell shielded his eyes. He turned to Riche. "I had no knowledge His Grace knew about agriculture."

"You know what I mean," Brandon insisted. "Move her along. Pick her up and throw her in the boat if you have to, Cromwell."

"For pity's sake." Riche put an extra pace between himself and the duke. He glanced at the queen just as she turned and saw that the number of men had grown to three. She faltered, raising one hand to touch fingertips to her glittering crown, and slid her gaze sideways along the trio before turning away completely to permit the re-packing of her books by Mary Shelton.

Cromwell shook his head. "No such measures will be necessary, Your Grace. Richard, when the lady has finished her organizing, perhaps you could approach her personally and politely request to proceed with the process."

Brandon sputtered. "Master Riche does not lead this apprehension!"

Riche opened his mouth to speak, then closed it as Cromwell whirled on the duke in an unprecedented display of aggression. "Your Grace does not appear to be leading anything, if you will excuse me. Perhaps you've condescended to the lady at some point already and ensured her uncooperative manner? Think back, my lord; were you respectful? She is, after all, your queen."

The duke spent several seconds rolling his lips against each other before replying. "I have showed her every courtesy that befits her rank."

"I should hope so," Cromwell muttered back, so that Riche had to strain to hear. "The arrest and conducting of the queen to the Tower were your chance to display the legitimacy of the nobility. I would like to think Your Grace has represented your station with honour and not allowed any personal considerations to take precedent. I shall await the testimony of the queen's household to verify this. His Majesty should hate to hear that you handled yourself with anything other than integrity." Cromwell's shoulder brushed the duke's backward as he left them. Over his shoulder he called, "Many thanks for your assistance, Master Riche."

The queen acquiesced cordially with Riche's deferential request, placing a hand on his arm and apologizing again for the hindrances. "Such a heavy consideration, you see, Master Riche." Her expression was troubled, but then she broke into a grin. "I am not packing for holiday but for the rest of my life. I go not to a well-equipped manor house but to a cell in the bowels of the Tower of London."

"Not to a cell, Majesty," he assured her with a slight bow of his head. "To the royal suites where you stayed before your coronation."

Anne brought both hands to the neck of her traveling cloak and drew it closer around the front of her body, in spite of the mild spring weather. "A gilded cage is still a cage, my lord." And she turned to select the first trunk to be loaded, directing royal pages with the effortless flick of a wrist. The Solicitor General closed his eyes for a moment, trying to memorize the look on her face and the regality with which she comported herself. He suspected that Cromwell would want to know of it later, and given their friendship, he would not hesitate to tell the man that he had been absolutely in awe of the queen's behaviour on the bank of the Thames that day.

The last obstacle was in parting Anne from her ladies – or, rather, in parting Anne's ladies from her. The pretenses of royal farewells were so drawn out that Suffolk leaned over and muttered that they must have rehearsed them in advance. "I've half a mind to throw Nan Saville in the back of the barge and imprison her for the time being," he added. "Little banshee is going to make trouble."

"On what charge?" Riche chuckled, unsure whether Suffolk was jesting.

The corner of Suffolk's mouth twitched up as he glanced at the sky, estimating how much time had passed. "Being loyal to the queen. Irritating me. However you'd like to phrase it."

Again, Riche kept his peace. He nodded respectfully toward Suffolk as though acknowledging the validity of his absurd statement.

The last of the parcels was loaded and the queen's household stood quivering on the landing while Anne led her gaolers down the dock. "Your Grace, would you mind –?" She held out her hand to Suffolk.

He took it and supported her, other hand behind his back like a suitor, as she tiptoed across the ramp onto the waiting barge. With the final step, the queen ceased to be a free woman and became a prisoner of the crown.

"Shhhhh," Nan insisted as Madge broke into tears, wiping her upturned little nose on the sleeve of the day gown that no mistress would expect to be kept clean now. "Shhh. We've got to hold ourselves together."

"Why?" Mary Shelton demanded, angry. "She's gone."

"We have tidying to do," Nan replied. "And I believe the seamstress will be delivering the pearl necklace that Her Majesty requested. Come, ladies, we're behind on our chores." She started up the bank toward the cobbled entrance to Greenwich.

The others strayed behind and looked back and forth between themselves. "The queen is gone," Madge echoed. Her lips quivered with the sentence.

Nan turned back with a wrinkled brow. "And does that mean we are not her household? God's sake, you mustn't be so quick to abandon your duties, Mistress Shelton." When she continued toward the palace, the other ladies fell into step behind her. "Madge, have you misplaced your handkerchief? Her Majesty's absence does not mean you should disregard the proper habits she has taught you…"

vi.

Evening

After nightfall, the Seymour siblings sat at a table near the fire in a cramped upper chamber at Wolf Hall. All four held cards, but none paid them much heed. Tom tapped the toe of one boot against the floor at a jolly beat; Edward, still bundled into riding clothes, was dusty and drawn. His hair fell into his bloodshot eyes.

Jane eyed him. "You could do with a haircut, Edward," she said lightly.

"Other things on my mind."

Elizabeth shivered and edged her chair closer to the fireplace. She snuggled into the blankets she had wrapped unelegantly about her body, drawing her knees to her chest and tucking the coverings under her feet. "There will be a trial?" she asked.

Edward nodded, picking at the corner of one card. "More than one," he reminded her, "enough to investigate all the charges with the different partners."

"Who?" Tom looked up from his hand in surprise. "Was it not just Mark Smeaton?" He had come home to Wolf Hall with his sisters the previous evening, and they'd had no news from court.

"No. Henry Norris and Francis Weston were arrested yesterday; William Brereton was apprehended on the road back to Wales overnight. They were all thrown in the Tower."

Lissie's mouth dropped open. "Four? Four men?"

Edward shook his head. "And Thomas Wyatt and George Boleyn, this afternoon."

"What? Not on the same charge," Lissie insisted. Her brother just nodded slowly. Her mouth went dry. "Six? Her brother? _Six_?"

"I did not expect six," Edward admitted. It was shocking to hear Edward admit that he had less than full knowledge of what was happening at court.

Lissie turned to Jane, who raised her eyes guiltily. Tom mumbled something like, "The queen was a busy woman…"

"Shut your mouth, you fool," Lissie spat. "The charges are not true, and no one believes them but those who choose to, who must for political purposes. I do not believe them. Even Edward does not believe them." She jabbed a thumb at her eldest brother. "Do you?"

He gave her a warning look. "Elizabeth…"

"Edward!" she screeched. "Do you believe it?"

"My beliefs matter not at all."

She felt sick. "Six innocent men and one innocent queen. Seven bodies. All for the sake of our advancement."

Tom's normally lively eyes found her. They were somber. "Lissie, do you not understand –"

"I do." She dropped her cards on the table and got to her feet clumsily. "I do understand. I am for my bedchamber."

Edward watched her. Jane kept her eyes on her cards. Tom rubbed his temples, eyes closed.

Lissie turned back, angry with her siblings. "I understand our position and the cost of our elevation. Jane's elevation," she amended. Jane turned her head slightly and looked at her sister. "I support our family to the very end. I have not shown myself as anything other than loyal. But if any of you thinks the queen guilty of the crimes Cromwell has fabricated as a means of removing her, you are beyond idiocy. Good evening, Seymours." Their blank looks disgusted her. How would they feel if someone did this to a member of their own family?

She gathered her blankets in a huff and left the room. She waited for Edward to come after her, push her against the wall or pull her hair. He was the only one of her siblings that seemed to consider her important enough even for punishment these days. But not this time. He let her go.

vii.

Darkness had fallen slowly, gently. It was May. This was not the darkness of winter, the wet, chilling depth of night, but rather a violet twilight that crept over the early summer sky. Anne dressed herself for bed early. Apparently, the spies that would pose as her ladies of the bedchamber during her imprisonment – and she was no fool; she knew these women for spies of Cromwell – would not arrive until tomorrow. The royal household in the Tower had been an afterthought. She had refrained from begging Master Kingston to send for just one of her ladies from the palace to help her. She would not be seen as a desperate or doomed queen. She could certainly manage for one evening. She forewent the offered bath, afraid of shedding her clothes before anyone with whom she was not familiar, and decided she would wait until the following day when her new household was here. She pulled a clean shift over her head and spent the better part of an hour leaning against the glass pane of her new bedroom window, combing the snarls out of her hair. Her clumsy ministrations yanked and stung her scalp; she cursed herself for not appreciating Nan more. At this rate, she would look like an unkempt, unwashed cindermaid in no time. She smiled a sad smile as the punchline occurred to her: _and if it were so, I could put on an apron and find my way out of this fortress and into the safekeeping of anonymity._ She looked around, wistful for company to whom she could make this wry comment.

She had, of course, brought bedchamber slippers with her to the Tower. But something appealed to her about the unfinished stone floor. She dug the pads of her toes into it, feeling the unyielding gristle and the rough-hewn edges, testing her threshold for pain.

At every sound in the corridor, Anne jumped. Her eyes darted about constantly as though assailants concealed themselves within each shadow. She did not want to sleep alone in these rooms. As much as she had craved solitude at court, the queen found herself suddenly afraid of being exposed, unprotected. She knew that two Tower guards stood outside the door to her rooms, and that the door was locked with a thick iron bolt, but this knowledge did nothing to make her feel safe. Her thoughts were cyclical. First, she would fear being alone. Then, she would remind herself that she was secure under the protection of the guards outside her door. But her mind would then splinter into a dozen lines of thought, imagining the ways in which this might not be true.

The guards could be bribed or intimidated. They might be overpowered by a group of other guards who wanted to force their way into the rooms of the royal prisoner. They might fall asleep or abandon their post or otherwise fail to protect her. And they were, after all, Kingston's men. Who knew their allegiances. Their wages were not paid through the royal payroll; they were not her husband's men, nor those of Cromwell. He had – had it only been last night? – assured her that no harm would come to her, but she could not rest in serenity with that promise. It was too frightening to be locked in this stone palace-prison with its unforgiving, unpolished floors and the brutes with spears that guarded her door, whose fingernails had dirt under them and who lacked the pretty manners of the guards to whom she had become accustomed. She feared murder, death by suffocation while she slept, that she would start awake with a pillow over her face. She feared torture, for who was to watch over her to ensure that she was protected from physical harm? She even feared rape. The entire kingdom, those who did not know her personally, had thought her a whore for years. She had been called temptress, witch, demon. The people would see her arrest as proof that this slander was true, and Anne did not trust the intentions of men toward a woman whose existence had caused such turmoil in their land, only to be arrested for adultery with multiple partners. If they thought her a whore while she was in fact a virgin, she could hardly imagine what they would say now. She had little difficulty imagining a group of Tower guards forcing their way into her rooms, here, while she had no waiting women to witness it. She wished that the palace would have sent someone, anyone, to stay with her; someone to ensure that her guards would act as protectors rather than the predators that they could so easily become. She hoped to God that someone, and she was grudgingly aware that that someone could hardly be other than Cromwell, had made clear to them that she was to be respected and left in peace.

These rooms echoed, although they were full of furniture and decorated as tastefully as when she and Henry had planned her coronation lodgings over three years ago. They felt full of the pain that lay ahead. Anne had a nagging feeling that matters were worse than she had even imagined; she heard shouting and racket echoing through the stone cells on the lower levels, and the voice was familiar, but she could not hear it clearly enough to place it.

She would not let herself think of her daughter. Each time she tried, her eyes welled with hot tears, and she had to tip her head back and breathe quickly to stop herself from sobbing.

Reading was unsuccessful tonight. She could hardly get through a sentence without her eyes wandering to the end of the line, over the margin and into thin air. Finally, Anne put the book down and pulled on a dressing robe. The linens she had brought were piled on the bed, but she was cold. There was not enough firewood to last through the night if she built it up now; she did not want to have to invite the men to bring her more logs in the wee hours of the morning. She would rather shiver. She thought of a letter opener, a gold chain around the neck of a man dressed in black who would drive an assailant backward against a wall with the heave of a shoulder; quick stabbing motions, in, out; and back away to leave the victim for dead. But no letter opener could protect her in the moment.

Anne got into bed astoundingly early. Her body was exhausted, but her mind would give her no rest. She lay taut and alert, tensing in fear at every hint of movement or a presence near her rooms, and wondered who the ladies would be that she would meet tomorrow. A small, fleeting thought told her that she was not herself, that she had not yet grasped what was happening to her and what would happen to her yet. She could not bring herself to face what she knew must be coming. If she was honest with herself, she lacked the strength and faith to do so. Instead, Anne busied herself with making a mental list of requests for Master Kingston. In spite of everything, internal and external, she had promised herself that she would remain Queen of England until her very last breath.

viii.

She found herself alone, finally alone, for the first time in what felt like years. She and Jane shared one maid; the majority of the family's staff had been left at court in the siblings' hasty flight. Moonlight spilled through the window of Lissie's bare bedchamber, her room from girlhood. It was devoid of finery and courtiers, hungry-eyed and spouting hollow words and gestures. It was divine.

After she had patted herself dry from a quick bath and combed out her hair next to the cheerful fire, Lissie bundled herself in sheets and wriggled beneath heavy woolen blankets, blissfully at comfort. Her thoughts wandered, in the way that thoughts usually do before sleep; five minutes or an hour may have passed when, in a foggy half-asleep realization, Lissie sensed someone entering her bedchamber.

Her eyes flicked open: the moon was high in the sky. It was the middle of the night.

The door opened softly, barely creaking on the hinges. Lissie sighed as the figure padded across the floor – clearly barefoot – and crawled into bed behind her. An acidic fear gripped her stomach, but she knew she was not in danger. A light touch on her shoulder, wrapped in layers of bedlinens, and she turned to look at him. "What are you doing here?" she whispered.

"I missed you," he whispered back, a sad smile on his face.

Lissie turned away. "You are not welcome."

"Lissie, don't be angry with me," he begged. "Not now. We've gone through so much…"

She punched a pillow next to her head. "Yes, we have. And I hope you think it was worth it."

"It will be. I trust it will be. It has to be." His voice was quiet. He slid across the bed toward her.

"Go away." Lissie squeezed her eyes shut even though she did not face him.

"Elizabeth, please. This has not been all joy and rapture for me either. I need you. I need my sister."

"You have another sister. As if you could forget." But her tone was weak.

Edward propped his head on a pillow behind hers, so he could see her profile in the dark. He put an arm around her and gave her a gentle squeeze. "It is not the same," he whispered in her ear.

"And a wife," she reminded him.

"None of them are like you." He placed his palm over her hand where it rested on the mattress.

She could smell the soap he used to wash his hair. The heat of his shoulders behind her was a comfort, ironic in the face of the fear and tension that had been the driving force of their relationship for the past months. She sighed again, a relieved exhalation this time. "It's been a long time," she murmured.

"You are a woman now." He chuckled.

"Everywhere but where it counts."

He wrapped his fingers around her hand. "It would not matter. You will always be pure as the day you were born." She smiled in the dark. "And more beautiful every day. The loveliest Seymour sister by far."

"Shhh," she warned sleepily. "Hush. We are what we are."

"I know." He nuzzled his nose against her hair. "I'm only here this one night – tomorrow I am back to Greenwich."

"Then, soon, we are part of the royal family." Lissie shook her head. "Can you believe it?"

He did not answer. "Maybe never again, Liss."

"They arrested Lord Rochford," she said softly, a comment that they both ignored. "And so you will go back to being a wolf."

"And you the lamb."

"Edward," Lissie said carefully, "do you love Anne?"

Edward paused. "I do."

She turned his hand over and kissed his palm. "I am glad for you."

He nudged one of his feet between her ankles. Their lower legs tangled together. Lissie re-settled on her pillow, allowing Edward to support her, and laid her head to rest. Her fingers toyed with Edward's absently.

Lissie recalled a tune from childhood, words that had echoed about these halls when they were but small, gangly limbs and unkempt hair, little scoundrels that could not be kept out of trouble – particularly the eldest and the youngest Seymour children, who were often nestled in some corner while the other brother played at marbles and the other sister buried her face in embroidery. The eldest and the youngest, both ruddy and sharp, making each other laugh and bruise and scream with outrage. Lissie smiled. "I took a bow, and aimed it low," she whispered.

She felt his smile. "Caught you on the chin, chin, chin."

"My mother said, 'now go to bed'…"

Edward tightened his hold on her, pulling her close and wrapping his form around her. She had always been his. He put his lips to her ear, whispered through her hair: "I'll have to lock you in, in, in."

Lissie turned her face and they looked at one another in the darkness. In the past, they had taken turns being careful. He tilted his head so she could only reach the corner of his mouth, and she kissed him there. He smoothed her hair away and kissed her temple as they both laid against her pillows. "You'll wake in time?" she asked him sleepily.

"Always." He squeezed her reassuringly.

**UP NEXT:**

Cromwell cleared his throat, seeing in Henry's tortured expression that the king was a vacant crucible, willing and eager to be filled with whatever substance Cromwell selected. "Siblings are often of one mind, my lord. Perhaps they are adept at hiding it," he suggested, thinking what words one might use to describe his own public relations with the queen lately. "Perhaps they have had a quarrel. Perhaps Lord Rochford became jealous."

Henry crossed himself solemnly. "It is an abomination against the Lord and against nature," he said. His voice was soft. His eyes were far away. "You're sure?"

"I am," Cromwell said without pause. "A jury of lords will review all the evidence, of course, to address any oversights. And Lord Rochford will have his chance to defend himself."

As his fingers rubbed his eyes, Cromwell saw that Henry still wore his wedding ring. "Dear God, Cromwell, that's an image worthy of nightmares. My brother-in-law on top of my wife."

_Start imagining the others on top of her,_ Cromwell urged him. The images alone would not ruin the king, but their implications – suggestions of inferiority, of inability to satisfy – might be enough to browbeat him into self-isolation. What Cromwell needed was for Henry to lock himself away for a few days, a week, to mourn and move on. To say to him, _Cromwell, you are my man, and I need for you to bring this matter to conclusion through whatever means at your disposal. Incidentally, allow me to place all conceivable means at your disposal._ And with that, to turn on his heel and leave Cromwell to his own devices. Lawful and legitimate, to be sure. But perhaps with a few shortcuts. He had barely slept in days. The reports of the queen's physical illness and emotional instability, but of her astounding mental clarity, were what would ruin Cromwell. He could not move with his usual alacrity for consideration of her. So what he needed was a royal order to do whatever it took to lay this matter, in its entirety, to rest. And for that, the king would need to be driven as mad as he himself was.

He ran down the names again, pretending to defer to Henry's discomfort at the idea of incest. "Henry Norris, Your Majesty's chief groom. William Brereton, deputy governor of Wales. Francis Weston –"

"D'you think she loves Wyatt?"

"Love?" Cromwell held the word on the tip of his tongue as though it tasted like rancid meat.

"I… I wonder if she loves him." Henry's eyes searched his, and Cromwell tried not to blink as he ran down the columns of benefits and disadvantages to answering one way or another. It was sad that his life had become thus, he thought. Each honest word predetermined by a hasty ten seconds of unscrupulous figuring and reasoning within his mind; each solemn promise precontracted with a series of mental clauses, conditions to which only he was privy, that provided him with multiple ways out of what he pledged. He could count on one hand the number of times in the past year that he had behaved as he pleased, without calculation or stratagem. Unfortunately, his present feint – his master feint really – would purge those examples and eventually he would doubt whether his memories were real. He would train himself to render them as nothing more than desperate manifestations. He wanted her dead; he needed her dead; but the last proof of his liberty would die with her. From the swipe of the sword onward, he would exist truly and solely as the king's man.

It had been more than ten seconds. The king's eyes bored into his. He had forgotten to decide which answer was better. "It would seem very possible, my lord," he told his king gravely. Henry's countenance flinched, genuine pain and grief wrinkling his already strained features. He had chosen correctly. If only he could make himself believe these notions, he thought. It would be so much easier to wash his mind clear of her.


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: Hello and happy February! It's been precisely 2 months since I updated. Yikes! I will say that a good part of my motivation to write the next chapter is the reviews I get on each new chapter. So, if you read and you enjoy my story, please leave me a review – anonymously if you're not a member! Whether it's constructive criticism or a compliment, just to know that people are reading and finding my story worthy of their time is inspirational to me. It helps me to get the creative ball rolling. Many thanks =)**

**Andrea, LOL, I am still blushing over that review. Yikes! Thank you, thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed chapter 6 =)**

**Rae, last chapter was actually longer than usual, so you did read it in record time! I hope you like this one as well, even though it is much shorter – I'm getting used to the faster pace of the story and this chapter was a tough one to write, so let me know if you liked it =)**

3 May

i.

"I…" Henry trailed off. He grimaced and swallowed. "I don't understand."

Cromwell braced his neck in anticipation of the blow. "Your Majesty, it is alleged that both men –"

Henry held up a hand, palm toward Cromwell, face hidden behind his own knuckles. "I understand Wyatt," he amended. "God knows I understand about Wyatt. He deflowered her, I'm sure. If she even made it back from France intact. I'll have to ask Francis one day, what he really thinks, now that our diplomatic friendship does not rest upon his good recommendation of her virtues. But Rochford? Cromwell? Rochford?"

The secretary nodded. "Yes, Majesty. The allegations have come from a number of witnesses, both within the queen's household and elsewhere."

"She's been bedding her brother?" Blue eyes ticked back and forth in rhythm with the king's head. "They have not seemed particularly close recently."

Cromwell cleared his throat, seeing in Henry's tortured expression that the king was a vacant crucible, willing and eager to be filled with whatever substance Cromwell selected. "Siblings are often of one mind, my lord. Perhaps they are adept at hiding it," he suggested, thinking what words one might use to describe his own public relations with the queen lately. "Perhaps they have had a quarrel. Perhaps Lord Rochford became jealous."

Henry crossed himself solemnly. "It is an abomination against the Lord and against nature," he said. His voice was soft. His eyes were far away. "You're sure?"

"I am," Cromwell said without pause. "A jury of lords will review all the evidence, of course, to address any oversights. And Lord Rochford will have his chance to defend himself."

As his fingers rubbed his eyes, Cromwell saw that Henry still wore his wedding ring. "Dear God, Cromwell, that's an image worthy of nightmares. My brother-in-law on top of my wife."

_Start imagining the others on top of her,_ Cromwell urged him. The images alone would not ruin the king, but their implications – suggestions of inferiority, of inability to satisfy – might be enough to browbeat him into self-isolation. What Cromwell needed was for Henry to lock himself away for a few days, a week, to mourn and move on. To say to him, _Cromwell, you are my man, and I need for you to bring this matter to conclusion through whatever means at your disposal. Incidentally, allow me to place all conceivable means at your disposal._ And with that, to turn on his heel and leave Cromwell to his own devices. Lawful and legitimate, to be sure. But perhaps with a few shortcuts. He had barely slept in days. The reports of the queen's physical illness and emotional instability, but of her astounding mental clarity, were what would ruin Cromwell. He could not move with his usual alacrity for consideration of her. So what he needed was a royal order to do whatever it took to lay this matter, in its entirety, to rest. And for that, the king would need to be driven as mad as he himself was.

He ran down the names again, pretending to defer to Henry's discomfort with the idea of incest. "Henry Norris, Your Majesty's chief groom. William Brereton, deputy governor of Wales. Francis Weston –"

"D'you think she loves Wyatt?"

"Love?" Cromwell held the word on the tip of his tongue as though it tasted like rancid meat.

"I… I wonder if she loves him." Henry's eyes searched his, and Cromwell tried not to blink as he ran down the columns of benefits and disadvantages to answering one way or another. It was sad that his life had become thus, he thought. Each honest word predetermined by a hasty ten seconds of unscrupulous figuring and reasoning within his mind; each solemn promise precontracted with a series of mental clauses, conditions to which only he was privy, that provided him with multiple ways out of what he pledged. He could count on one hand the number of times in the past year that he had behaved as he pleased, without calculation or stratagem, and unfortunately, his present feint, his master feint really, would wipe clean those examples and, after awhile, he would doubt whether his memories of it were real or just desperate manifestations. He wanted her dead; he needed her dead; but the last proof of his liberty would die with her.

It had been more than ten seconds. The king's eyes bored into his. He had forgotten to decide which answer was better. "It would seem very possible, my lord," he told his king gravely. Henry's countenance flinched, genuine pain and grief wrinkling his already strained features. He had chosen correctly. If only he could make himself believe these notions, he thought. It would be so much easier to wash his mind clear of her.

ii.

"Evidence," Anne demanded. "I would like to know what evidence there is against me."

Master Kingston blinked at her. He had come to call on the queen a half hour before, to inform her that the ladies that would serve her during her imprisonment would not be arriving for another day at least. She had detained him with harsh chatter about the charges against her. The constable knew no more than she did about the legalities of Cromwell's plans, and he had tried to explain this to her, but she had tripped on as though she had not heard him.

She tapped a foot impatiently. "It is difficult to imagine what proof there could possibly be of such offenses, even if I had committed them, which I have not." Her tone was clipped.

"No, my lady."

"D'you mean to withhold a household from me as a means of emotional pressure? D'you think to harangue me to some false confession, Master Kingston? Is this part of your agreement with the secretary?"

"Your Majesty, my role –"

"I won't have it!" Her voice stabbed his, stopping it in its tracks. "I am the Queen of England, and I will not have it! I will be afforded every custom and privilege of my position. I demand that more consideration be given to my comfort. And what evidence could there possibly be, Master Kingston? What talk of proof?"

He stepped back a trifle. The queen spoke as intelligently and eloquently as ever, but her anxiety appeared to have gotten the best of her. Kingston wondered that it had happened so quickly. He had not taken the queen for a tender sort. She stood before him, pale and fragile in a plain gown, and he noticed for the first time that she seemed to be covered in gooseflesh. "My lady, are you cold?"

The surprise that he had not bothered to acknowledge her rant stopped her. Anne's lips parted. Her brow wrinkled as she processed the simple question. "Yes," she finally said, annoyed at the realization. "I cannot think why my rooms are not better heated. I've barely enough firewood for a meager fire. One would think me a prisoner of a foreign entity, the way my comfort is neglected." Her foot tapped again.

"Madam, I extend my sincerest apologies. I will have an abundance of wood and kindling brought, and please have any of the men come in to build up the fire when it dies down."

She chuckled to herself, delighted. "And have you no care for decorum? A man alone with a woman such as me?" One hand, stark white against the slate gray of her gown, covered her mouth.

Kingston backed away from her laughter, a chill teasing his spine. "You are, as you say, Queen of England, my lady. I would think of you as no other." He bowed and shuffled out the door as she flapped a hand dismissively. Turning to the captain of the guard at his post in the corridor, he indicated the queen's rooms. "Get her as much firewood as you can practically store in there, and applewood logs and kindling. Treat her like the Virgin Mary. And memorize everything she says."

iii.

Thomas Boleyn, Lord Rochford, pressed himself against the outer door to his brother-in-law's apartments. He had knocked, once, twice, thrice. The door was bolted firmly against him. He had called out, "Your Grace?" He had shouted his wife's brother's name, first and last.

He slumped against the wood, his cheek dragging along the wooden surface that was worn to semi-smoothness by virtue of age only. He knew that the Duke of Norfolk was inside. He could hear the slight pitter-patter of feet on the stone floors within. Maids and pages, he assumed, scurried inside. Probably on orders to go about their business and ignore the pounding on the door. Norfolk kept a skeleton household on these brief trips to court.

It was as if he was dreaming. The vague disbelief of the arrests of his younger two children, one after the other, and their imprisonment in the Tower of London had not yet settled into acceptance in Wiltshire's mind. Still eerier was the relative calm about the court. He seemed the only person in such a panic; but then, that made sense. These were his children. His blood. His legacy.

They were the duke's family, too. His niece and nephew. "Thomas," Boleyn rasped, leaning on the gilt handle of the outer door for support. "Thomas, please." He spoke as much to himself as to Norfolk.

For more than thirty years they had been brothers-in-law. Their children had been raised alongside one another. Each had witnessed the rise of the other, from knight to lord and lord to earl, from heir to earl to premier duke in England. Both had borne the brunt of the king's displeasure, and that of Anne. They had drunk wine and traded tales of women, battle, money.

It must be a dream, Boleyn told himself desperately, it must be all of it a dream. He had had dreams that felt realer still than this. Yet something about the affected silence that greeted his pleas for entrance to the Duke of Norfolk's rooms told him that, no, the sensation of his world crashing around him was no dream. He laid broad waking.

"I know you are there, my lord," he insisted to the door, beating the heel of his hand half-heartedly against it. "I know you to be within. For God's sake, have a care for your family. Your sister's daughter." Nothing. "Thomas, my brother-in-law, have a care for me."

He remembered the way his daughter had looked the last time he saw her, lips puffy and reddened as they always got when she was upset, nose mottled and eyes teary. He had been short with her. More than short. Nasty. Harsh. Uncaring. He thought back now, to their journey together back from Paris when her time at Francis I's court had ended. He had brought her home with the intention of marrying into the Butler family, Irish cousins of the Boleyns. She had been so young then, or seemed it compared with how she appeared now. As he had tried to explain the genealogical difficulties with the inheritance of the Butlers and how she fit into the goals of the family, Anne had teased him, chided him, challenged his understanding of the business of marriage. She had clucked her tongue at the constant use of the first name "James" in the Butler family and declared she would never have a son named James. After becoming queen, she had danced with her father at her coronation banquet. As they rounded the room in a galliard, Anne had laid her hand on her round belly and grinned up at him, murmuring, _Papa, I've never forgotten my vow to you in the bowels of that ship: I will not be naming this baby James._ And with a hearty laugh, he had squeezed her fingers. _As long as it is a boy, my dear, you have my blessing to name it whatever you like._ She had cried silent tears as she cradled newborn Elizabeth that September, the hot summer air lingering, making mother and baby shimmer in the afternoon sunshine. Forcing a smile, Anne had tipped her head up sideways at him in that same roguish way and quipped, _I suppose now we won't need to discuss the name 'James,' will we?_

Boleyn shut his eyes, his lips curling in a sneer at himself as he remembered his response. _No. You'll need to prove yourself a worthy woman before we worry about that._ He had stared straight ahead as her head drooped and she cuddled her first child against her chest.

When she'd lost the next one, he had thundered at her, standing over her bed and glaring at her waxy, sunken face: _What did you do? How could you have killed the baby?_

Tears stung at his eyes, which he squeezed shut. His thumbs dammed the tears away and he wiped the moisture on the wooden door. "Don't abandon me," he muttered into his palms. The irony that he was essentially praying to the Duke of Norfolk broke over his head. He began to chuckle, and then broke into true laughter, leaning against the door as though it had just told him a very clever joke.

All at once, he sensed rather than heard the iron bolt turning in the door.

Boleyn stepped back as the door opened a breath, then a little more, and a little more. The Duke of Norfolk himself stood there, the outer door to his apartments half ajar. "Your Grace," Thomas Howard nodded.

"They've – Anne and George are arrested."

"Yes, my lord." Norfolk blinked.

Boleyn checked at his impassive face. "They are imprisoned in the Tower," he reiterated lamely, thinking and praying that his brother-in-law must be unaware. Only that would excuse his behaviour in any favourable way.

"For incest, my lord."

Nostrils flared, Boleyn opened his mouth to speak and had to stop and collect himself. "False, ridiculous charges," he hissed, stepping closer to Norfolk.

"Designed to oust your daughter."

"Your niece," Boleyn reminded him.

"My sister's daughter," Norfolk amended.

A desperate bead of sweat quaked at the nape of Boleyn's neck, making him shiver as it slid down his backbone to be absorbed into his damp undershirt. "She's your blood, Thomas."

"She's about to be erased from history," Norfolk said gently. "Thomas."

"She's innocent- "

"How can you know? You cannot. No one can prove them innocent, and that is how they will be convicted. All of them. You must have seen this coming. Surely?" Norfolk's expression read as pitying.

Boleyn swallowed and grimaced. "Not as a charge of carnal knowledge. You know in your heart…"

Norfolk snorted at this, but there was no humour in his smile. "Hearts have less than nothing to do with this, my lord. Come. You know that."

"But – my children," Boleyn burst out, angry, terrified, before trailing off.

"I suggest you run. You are not outside the reach of suspicion. Remove yourself while you have the chance."

Boleyn shook his head, aghast. "The honour of a family always comes first among Howards."

"You are not a Howard. Nor are your children."

"They are of Howard blood," Boleyn spluttered. "How could you not –"

The duke held up a hand, licked his lips. "My family stood for Richard Plantagenet on Bosworth Field. We spent two decades prostrating and bequeathing and polishing the Tudor ego to reclaim our birthrights. I have children and grandchildren, Thomas. Would you have us begging in the street? I will not see my house incinerated by the flames that burnt the king."

Thomas Boleyn took a step back. "So you would throw dirt on the fire and put it out?"

With a sad smile, Norfolk held up his palms. "Combustion is not my area of expertise. I will keep my flammable goods out of harm's way. You would be wise to do the like." He reached for the door.

"I asked," Boleyn hissed as he grasped the door as well, "whether you would stand by us."

Norfolk's sympathetic eyes gazed out from his wrinkled lord's face. "And I told you not to be ridiculous." Boleyn's lips parted, and Norfolk gently tugged the door shut.

iv.

If only, Cromwell thought to himself, it was not so easy to get a barge up to the Tower. He had work to do. Yet before he knew it, he was striding up the dock toward the landing, apologizing to Master Kingston for calling him away from his wife.

"How is she?" He tried to appear and sound disinterested, to somehow make it seem as though duty compelled this impromptu evening visit to check on the queen.

"She is cold all the time," Kingston replied, in such a way that Cromwell thought he might be jesting. He did not get the joke, and the constable went on, "I have checked on her four times today, and no matter how much my men build up the fires in her rooms, she shivers. One can see with a naked eye the goosebumps on her neck and lower arms. She seems to tremble within her gown. Even beside a roaring hearth, as when I visited her after supper, pink-cheeked and smelling of cinders, she is clearly chilled to the bone."

Cromwell frowned. "Is she ill?"

"No, my lord. No fever."

"Does she have adequate footwear and clothing?"

"She has not complained of wanting for anything, sir."

After searching his mind for another question that would help paint the picture of Anne sitting before the fire in her stone prison, Cromwell changed tacks. "And what of her statements? Is she of sound emotional health?"

"Very quarrelsome at moments, but never abusive, verbally or otherwise. She seems happier than one would expect. As if she is being watched and is minding her behaviour."

"Which she is, and should be," Cromwell smiled. He could not deny her cleverness. "Anything else?"

Kingston paused in thought. "She expresses frustration that her new waiting women have yet to arrive. She insists that she needs help in her daily routines. She thinks it to be a device of interrogation imposed to browbeat her."

Nodding in acknowledgement of the suspicion, Cromwell thought it over. "And what say you? Do her protestations of helplessness ring accurate?"

"You know the ways of women are incomprehensible to us," the constable shrugged. "I feel certain she would do better with at least some temporary assistance. Unless the waiting women are to arrive in the morning?"

Cromwell shook his head. In truth, he had barely put any effort into pulling together the promised group of women to serve the queen in her imprisonment. Beyond a list of potential names, there was no progress. He was hesitant to assign women that he did not know well; yet at the same time, the women assigned had to be seen as worthy of the positions. And beneath everything else, Cromwell was not sure the queen would be locked in the Tower long enough to require a real contingent of women. "No. At earliest, the day after tomorrow."

Kingston sighed. "She won't like that. That's what I told her this morning."

"I shall have to figure some way out," Cromwell assured him. "She won't bear her claws at you much longer. I'm sorry for my delay."

"Not at all." Kingston shivered. It was a balmy night; Cromwell wondered if residence in the walls of the Tower had rendered the man perpetually cold. Or perhaps he had fallen under the spell of the royal prisoner.

On the way back to Greenwich, Cromwell sank low in his seat and rested his head, staring up at the stars. With his eyes he traced shapes and figures into the sky, connecting the brilliant diamonds above him into a crown, a sword, a scale. He weighed the value of mercy against the standard of protocol, the warmth of human kindness versus the cool blade of political expediency. He remembered when he had held his two young daughters on his lap and gazed up at these same stars, years before, promising that their mother was watching them now from above. Their tears had shone in the moonlight, and he had thought that there must be nothing worse for a little girl than to be told her mother was dead. And his wife, his Elizabeth, had been loved by all.

Empathy, he asked himself, or image. It was a short ride, but such was his exhaustion that his eyes drifted closed and he started awake shortly before they docked beside the palace. The first thing he saw was that clear dark sky, dense with points of brilliant light. He imagined Anne's chest covered with goosebumps, a shiver on her lips. He did not have to imagine heat on her cheeks. He knew what that looked like. Her hair would be long and loose down her back without a maid to plait it. His fingers had always wanted to bunch into those thick curls. Not always. But often, recently.

As the barge slid carefully against the shore, Cromwell exhaled and watched; but no, he could not see the puff of his own hot breath. So he had to imagine it spreading out to cover the stars, to cover the goosebumps on the queen's chest, warming her collarbone to match her flushed cheeks in her stone prison.

v.

Anne thought she must be dreaming, but the voice called to her again through the fogginess. "My lady? My own lady?"

Rubbing her eyes, the queen turned over. Although the voice was warm, female and familiar, she tensed in fear. Her rooms were dark and the person was picking her way toward her. "Who?" she demanded. "Who goes?"

"Your Majesty? It is…" the voice hesitated while Anne shook her head vigourously, trying to clear her mind and adjust to the world of the waking. "Mistress Saville."

Anne bolted upright and threw back the covers as the shape came round the corner to her bedchamber area and materialized into the familiar form of her lady. "Nan! Nan, oh, God, thank God…" Heedless of the chill of the stone floor, Anne verily leapt from bed and hurled herself at the familiar woman, with one motion yanking the hood down to Nan's shoulders and encircling her with both arms. Both women swayed with the force of the embrace. Nan squeezed her mistress so hard she feared she might hurt her. "Nan, how did you get in here?"

"Master Cromwell sent me," Nan whispered.

There was a pause, and Anne drew back, her scrunched expression visible even in the near-darkness. "Cromwell?" she repeated.

"Yes. Apparently Your Majesty's waiting women won't be here for another day at least, and it was decided you needed assistance."

"Is that what he said?"

"I did not see him," Nan shook her head, "nor speak to him. He sent one of his pages – Mark – to fetch me and had me pack a few things." She gestured to a tight bundle she had dropped on the floor as she embraced her mistress.

Still, Anne shook her head. "How long are you to stay?"

"Til whenever they decide to send me back, I suppose. I got very little information. The very idea is confusing – why should Master Cromwell care for your comfort?"

"God knows how that man's mind works," Anne mumbled carelessly. "No more talk of him. Oh, Nan, I don't think I've ever been so relieved. Are you tired?"

"Yes, madam. I can make up a spot in the next room, and tomorrow we'll send for a cot –"

"Nonsense. You'll sleep in my bed, for tonight at least." Given over to shivering again, Anne beckoned her lady. "A bedfellow will warm us both. It is freezing in here."

Nan yawned, too exhausted to argue. She dropped her traveling cloak, which had not protected her against the chill of the Thames as well as she might have hoped, on the floor and followed the queen straightway into the large bed. "Have you been well cared for? I worried."

"As well as a prisoner of the crown can expect, I accept. But I'm terribly lonely." Anne smoothed the layers of bedcoverings.

"Not alone anymore," Nan reminded her happily.

"But lonely and alone are different. I was lonely before," Anne admitted. "And shall be again."

Nan paused. "The court is lost without Your Majesty."

"They shall have to find themselves again." She yawned audibly. "Or have Mistress Seymour find them."

"Same concept."

"Nan, you have turned wicked."

The younger lady pulled the covers up to her chin. "How could I not, living at court?"

Anne smiled as she drifted closer to slumber, feeling more secure than she had in a long time. Something felt vaguely promising about Nan's post as her lady in the Tower. She imagined Thomas Cromwell, locked away behind his desk, poring over the details of her imprisonment and making the decision to send to Anne her one true friend. But try as she might, there was no understanding his reasoning. Was this a trick? How could it be? Anne peeked at her maid, whose honest face was relaxed as she fell asleep. This was Nan, her Nan. She remembered holding back her tears as she faced Cromwell, that day in the garden, _Nan too? She is my only friend, you know._ But this could not be a gesture of kindness. Yet she also remembered – although perhaps it was not a memory, as she did not think she had noticed it before, and thus could it be called a memory? – the gravel under his voice when he promised he would cut out the insides of anyone who hurt her. The gleam in his eye as he had said those words, leaning over her as they stood face to face for what would be the last time, came clearly into her mind's eye now. She had laughed at him, and she would do the same if they had the conversation now. But something about that moment connected with the resting form of Nan Saville beside her. _If anyone lays a finger on you, I will carve out his innards with a letter opener, _he had said. Now Anne wondered if she should believe him. She closed her eyes as Nan's breathing slowed into real slumber. "There are different kinds of wickedness," Anne sighed into the darkness.

vi.

Riche's sunken eyes seemed to be judging him. Or, rather, they were judging him. "Is it not a trifle early for that?" Riche asked blankly.

He shrugged. "I see no harm. At the worst, he will be summoned and have to wait. He can have a holiday in London."

Riche blinked. Shook his head slowly. "Master Secretary…"

"What, Richard, would you have me wait until she is convicted?"

"Yes, I would." Riche banged a palm on Cromwell's desk as he got to his feet. "I would. I would not have you dispense with propriety."

Cromwell's eyes ticked up and back down. "Propriety," he dragged out the word as if tasting a delicate wine, "will not be given much consideration. And that isn't my fault, sir. You can blame the five men and the queen for the lack of propriety. I am only fulfilling my duty."

"Duty?" Riche grinned, a dubious snarl. "Thomas, are there not six men accused in the Tower? I suppose you've left out Wyatt. And why, because he is your friend? How does duty work in there?"

If the harsh words caught Cromwell by surprise, he did not show it. "I believe Wyatt to be innocent, and I hope to see him excused from the proceedings." His tone was prim.

"And because it is your duty, I trust we shall see that miracle presently."

The secretary sighed. "If I did not know better, Master Riche, I would think you in contempt of this whole business."

"Thomas, you know I don't do well with veiled threats. I am a simple man. If you want to warn me, be direct." Riche stood opposed, stance wide as shoulders, as though he was ready to brawl with his friend and colleague.

"As you wish." Cromwell sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. "You are to pull yourself together and remember that you serve the crown; not me, not the king's harlot wife, and most of all not your conscience. We are commissioned by that crown to undertake this matter with efficiency and care. I must insist you join me on this side of the stone walls, lest you be considered to stand for those on the other side."

Riche, not quite as adept at a statuesque countenance as Cromwell, looked on the verge of tears for a moment. He took a deep breath. "I am at your command, my lord, I trust you know that."

A flash of a smile as the secretary sat back up. "Of course, Richard. So, I think, the swordsman of Calais. Let us find out his rates now and move forward from there. I should hate to punctuate the convictions with a long, drawn-out waiting period."

"Shall I…" Riche squirmed, uncomfortable. "D'you think there will be different rates, for knight, lord, queen?"

"Doesn't much matter." Cromwell shrugged. "She is the only one for whom we will enlist a sword. The others can have the English axe." He scratched behind his ear. "It is for comfort, my lord. The sword is more precise, with less chance of error. I should hate for there to be any mishap. I do have a heart."

"But the men are less of a concern."

"Not that they are less, but the queen is more. And, she is practically French herself."

Still, Riche looked hesitant. "Forgive me, my lord, but it yet seems premature. The charges against her have not been made public. The trial will be at least a week away."

"I know. But no one can blame us for thinking ahead and taking especial care in this case. Think of His Majesty's emotional well-being." Cromwell shook his head sadly. "We must have a mind toward protecting the king. Off you go. Make some inquiries. I'll see you tomorrow." He waved his hand.

"My lord, I want to say privately to you," Riche murmured as he leant over Cromwell's desk, "that I believe not a shred of these accusations. Not a shred. I see that we are to put an innocent woman to death, among others, on false and ridiculous charges. My duty is my priority, and I will fulfill all the roles of my office. But I believe not a word of it."

Cromwell rubbed his temple; would this pounding not cease until she was dead? "Your beliefs don't matter," he assured Riche, if it could be called assuring. "What matters is that you have the rates of the swordsman of Calais for me after breakfast tomorrow."

"I shall see if he can handle me after," Riche growled to himself as he turned away.

"As long as you last the ordeal, Richie, that's what matters!" Cromwell called after him.

**UP NEXT:**

Kingston was looking gaunt, strange for a fellow of his age and constitution, having seen all the things he'd seen.

"She's laughing again today," he said, the words more a breath than a statement, as he looked over the dark slickness of the Thames.

Beside him, Riche turned his head in interest. "Laughing?"

"She laughs," Kingston explained. "She throws her head back and laughs; she giggles like a child; sometimes she verily howls as though someone is telling her jokes. I've seen her clutch her middle and double over, nearly screaming with laughter. But she often cries at the same time."

Riche's lips were parted. He licked them, clearly fascinated. Cromwell could only imagine what he was envisioning. "From the laughter?"

"Hard to tell."

Cromwell cleared his throat. "She is clearly mentally unwell."

The constable shook his head. "She is of as sound mind as you and I, my lord. Sounder than I, at points."

"Then explain the weeping and laughter," Cromwell replied with a roll of his eyes.

"I can't. It is as if she is not a mortal woman. She seems a figure of myth more than flesh and blood." Kingston stared ahead as if watching her, as if she floated before his eyes in the deep twilight. Cromwell swatted the flies that buzzed round his head, trying not to think on how many occasions he had had similar thoughts.

"Laughing and crying," Riche said, his words, like Kingston's, an exhale. It seemed that Anne's magnetism was contagious, not to be contained within the great grey fortress of the Tower. "Lord have mercy."

Cromwell signaled for the oarsmen. It was time to go back before the pull of her near presence became too much. The dock was temptation enough. "Amen."


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N: Hello all! Here we are with our latest chapter. It's a long one and I hope you like it!**

**As always, reviews are appreciated =)****  
****  
**Guest, thank you for your review! I appreciate your compliments greatly - I always strive to blend my training as a historian with what I'm slowly coming to learn about plotlines, characterization, and general fiction theory. Anne's ending may not be a fairy tale, but I promise you, it will be intriguing!

ObsessiveFanno, thank you very much! I'm glad you care about my characters. I care about them too =)

Rae, thanks as always for your review! I'm glad you enjoyed the Norfolk/Boleyn conversation - I haven't written much of either so I was hoping to carve out a good dynamic for them. There's more Riche/Cromwell this chapter and I hope you like it! Mayhap you can skip some homework again to read it? lol!

Alyson, you are correct in your memory - there was a law forbidding the execution of an insane person, and Henry VIII did have it reversed for Jane Rochford. I do think that he would have done whatever it took to have Anne dead. At least in my story, it seems like Henry is completely unravelling during this process and he desperately wants it to be over. I love Riche too =) he's becoming a great character, a conscience for Cromwell and a friend/ally too. The conflict will continue to grow as we approach the trial, and different characters will have different conflicts, of course; so please let me know what you think of their various struggles!

i.

5 May

Morning

Nan's lips pressed together in a frown at the queen's heaving, which had gone on for longer than the maid had anticipated. Anne shook and gagged, one arm wrapped about her torso, the other shakily supporting her above the basin. Nan ran a hand down her lady's back. She hated these situations. She was useless.

"Are you ill, my lady?" she asked when Anne slumped sideways, her retching subsided.

The queen inhaled and exhaled, her body seeming to disappear within her skeleton. She rested the side of her face on the thick carpet that had been laid before the foot of her bed, thankful for the wool instead of the stone floor. "It appears so."

"Can I get you some water? Wine?"

"Blankets," Anne murmured. "Just blankets."

Nan dragged two blankets from the cabinet where extra linens were stored. She propped a pillow under the queen's head and stroked her hair. "Perhaps you've been given some food of ill quality."

The queen's breathing was steady and even. She gazed into the pale grey sunshine that bid both ladies a fair morning. Hugging her midsection with both arms, she murmured, "perhaps."

ii.

Afternoon

Mary Boleyn's wide almond eyes trained on the page who stood nervously before her. "Arrested?" she repeated.  
The young man nodded. "Her Majesty your sister and your brother, Lord Rochford. And others."  
"Others?"  
The page paused a moment, recollecting. "Sir Henry Norris-"  
"Norris?" The word hurtled out of Mary's mouth. "His Majesty's friend?"  
"Sir Francis Weston. Sir William Brereton."  
Mary swallowed. "All noblemen?"  
The page shook his head. "Mark Smeaton."  
"My sister is accused of adultery with a music master?" Mary failed to keep the edge out of her voice. "Anyone else?"  
"Thomas Wyatt," the page all but whispered.  
Mary snorted with laughter, her mouth opening in a wide smile. "Ah. Master Wyatt." She shook her head. "Surely there is some mistake. My sister was a notorious virgin until her marriage. Surely it makes no logical sense that she would behave thus."  
The page held up his hands. "I bear only news of the arrests, my lady."  
"And for a queen to commit adultery," Mary continued, "is akin to treason. Yes?"  
"I would think it rendered thus, madam."  
Mary shook her head, slowly, as if in wonder. "I can hardly believe it could have happened thus. Was... were there warning signs in recent months?" She brought up one hand and perched it at the top of her forehead, shielding her face from the sun. Mary's light brown tresses had been faded to a dark bronze by the hot rays, as she fancied herself a humble farmer's wife now - although she was in reality a perfectly comfortable private gentlewoman. Her once-ivory skin was now an exotic golden honey. Her hair, carelessly half-plaited, fell loosely around her flushed cheeks. She was absolutely beautiful.  
The page grimaced. "Relations had soured - some time ago, my lady, there was talk of discord. But no hints thus."

"When Henry tires of a woman, she had best know the quickest way out." Underneath her flattened hand, half of Mary's face was in shadow. The page watched her lips move, that mouth that had, at various times, pleased two kings of Europe. Now the only visible reminder of those days was Mary's knowing smile, an ironic half-twist at the corners of her mouth that most people failed to notice about her. Which made sense, given that most people never got past her doe eyes, carefree disposition, and - as popular opinion had them - perfect breasts. But there was such similarity in her smile to the expressive smirk for which her sister was famous, that the page could almost understand how the king had wanted to trade one sister for the other.  
The page wondered how she felt in this moment, hearing of the spectacular fall of the younger sister who had eclipsed and dismissed her. While the Boleyn family had encircled and promoted Anne, Mary Boleyn, once Sir Thomas's favorite and by turns mistress of France and England, had been neglected and concealed. Formerly the prize piece of the Boleyns, Mary had become a liability to her sister's advancement. Yet there were blood; they shared parents, childhoods, and even a smirk.  
"Your father wished me to give you this message," the page said, for lack of any better remark.  
"I'm sure he's beside himself." Mary's tone was not without pity. "But this is what happens when one tries to build a new home on a foundation of temper and womb."  
What on earth was he to say to that? "Yes, my lady."  
She shook her head. "Should've stuck with Hever Castle. The higher we climb, the harder we fall."  
A male voice, blurred from distance, reached for Mary. "Darling? Who's that?"  
With a smile, Mary turned, basket of flowers in her hand. The page guessed that they might be for drying or flavoring. She spotted her husband, William Stafford, and gestured with her free hand. "A page, my love. Come down." Turning back to the page: "And if we are very lucky, we make a soft landing."  
Again, the page could only nod and murmur agreement as Will Stafford started down the long hill.  
Mary lowered her lashes and adjusted the flowers in her basket. "He likes to look after me," she said with a faint blush.  
The page bowed his head. "Indeed, madam." He wondered if Stafford was the first male in her life to truly do so.

"How do you do, lad," William Stafford greeted him affably with a clap on the shoulder.

"He's brought news of my sister," Mary cut in. "She's arrested – charged with adultery. With my brother George."

Stafford's lips pursed as he processed this information. "Good lord." He, too, squinted in the sunlight as he looked at the page. "So I suppose she hasn't born that son yet?"

The page shook his head. "No, my lord."

Stafford turned to his wife with a smile. "Did you hear that? 'My lord.' Haven't heard that in awhile."

Mary's eyebrows flicked up and down. "Shall I say that for you, dear husband?"

"Good God, no." He looked back at the page. "When would she ever call me that? Between scoldings?"

"William!" Mary laughed into her hand, which the page noticed was still lovely and smooth. Mary clearly still had a care for her upkeep.

Her husband fanned himself with one hand. "It's hot as hell out here. Come in, lad. You've had a long journey. Your horse must be hungry. Turn him loose over there," he waved a hand vaguely at a meadow where four other horses stood grazing, "and come in for some dinner."

The page wilted a little in relief. "I am so grateful for that, sir –"

"No need to thank us. This is how people behave away from court. Shocking, eh?" Stafford winked and turned to scale the hill back to the house, leaving Mary to smile and beckon the page with one hand, basket of wildflowers in the other. Mary, the former whore of Europe. Shocking indeed.

iii.

"Somehow," Thomas Wyatt commented to himself as he lay face-up on his bed in the Tower of London, "I always knew that my love of her would be the end of me."

He looked around. Not even a curious rat was listening to him.

"Would that any accusation of adultery were true. At least I would have gotten to experience it. But, no - I will be condemned, my head to survey the boats that pass underneath, on the Thames - without even that grace to validate me."

He settled his head and closed his eyes. The climbing sun washed over his body and warmed his face.

"Not even the joy of memories, tactile sensations and soft proclamations of joy and passion can comfort me. For there are none. Just longing, denial, and... nausea, really," he chuckled. A pigeon landed on the outer ledge of his barred window - he imagined, to be his confidante. He did love an audience. "For - what's it been? - above a decade. The Lord has not been merciful with me. And now it's replaced with... well, more longing, slightly less denial, and about the same amount of nausea."

The pigeon waddled to the left a little, bobbing and turning its head in the way that pigeons do. It seemed to be cocking its head to one side in earnest, saying, oh, do continue, Master Wyatt.

He sighed. "At least now I've got an excuse to do nothing but laze about all day." The pigeon spread its wings and flapped, standing in place but stretching itself vertically. "Come now, that was a little funny," he insisted as the bird settled itself and adjusted its feathers, preening them into place.

"Whoso list to hunt," Wyatt murmured, brushing his dark blonde curls over his forehead, the way Anne used to, before the day came where she refused to even touch him. When she had turned from him and strode away, resolute, her long dark hair bouncing over her back with every step. "I know where is an hind."

And he would have thrown himself on his own sword for her. Still would. Now, might have to. Wyatt glanced back up, and the pigeon had gained a mate. The pair were lolling about on the sill, darting between the bars, little bodies unable to be confined in the great Tower. Wyatt rolled his eyes. Even the pigeon had better luck than he. "Can adultery be one-sided?" he asked no one in particular. He almost wished someone was here to witness or transcribe his ramblings; it would ensure death, which would be better than what he guessed would be the alternative at this point. "Can my mental adultery with her count for both of us? It's plentiful, to be sure." He closed his eyes, fighting a yawn. All he did in the Tower was sleep and talk to himself. Or a pigeon, apparently.

"Ah, but written on that beautiful neck. All the way round: 'Caesar's I am. Don't touch me. The king's I am.'"

Another fluttering sound, a scuffling of feathers, and Wyatt looked up to see a third pigeon. A third? The Lord had no mercy for him today. He laughed out loud, shaking his head. "You overreach yourself," he told the first pigeon. "Even I never presumed upon such a thing. But I guess, in the animal world, such delights are not off-limits. Not so taboo. Do they become unexciting, as they are more readily available?" The three pigeons went on bobbing and jostling aimlessly, clearly no longer interested in his talk.

Poor George Boleyn. The only thing the man had truly done was to be Anne's brother. And a whoremongerer. And a bit of a waster. But no worse, really, than most men of his age at court. Of incestuous activity, George was certainly not guilty. It would be more believable of him than of Anne, but certainly not. And Anne, whom Wyatt knew intimately well despite what she might have to say, was certainly not guilty of adultery. She was far too proud of her virtues, and held her morality on far too high a pedestal - in general terms, for his taste, anyway - to ever engage in such behaviour. And, as much as Wyatt hated to admit it, she loved and revered her husband. Or had until recently. Not that any woman of sane constitution would continue loving the king after his recent personality changes.

He could not even imagine whose idea that charge had been. Clearly the court would be purged through this process, and as Anne's brother George would have to go, but could they not have spared a quarter hour to draw up some other imaginary offense for Rochford? The Boleyn siblings were no longer that close, personally; although perhaps most people paid less attention than did Wyatt. He tried to picture the act between the two of them - and promptly began imagining himself in the act with her. So it was no different than any other day, he reasoned. Lying about, unmotivated, listless, dreaming of Anne.

Maybe this was the biggest favour Cromwell would ever do for him. He needed to be free of this. He had prayed to everyone from the Lord to the Antilord, from Zeus to Aphrodite to the earth and grass under his feet. How long should it take love to die? How long should it take obsession to fade?

"How long does it take to swing an axe?" Wyatt murmured. He closed his eyes and imagined Anne, beautiful Anne, long hair trailing past her bleeding cropped neck. Blue eyes ablaze. If he was headless next to her on the Bridge - would she, as dead queen, be placed on the bridge? - perhaps she would love him. Or he would spend his afterlife chasing her; head or no head, it didn't much matter; breathless with sonnets and dripping with divine sweat, praising whomever had granted him this grace to finally have something to live for. Even though he would be dead.

iv.

May 6

Midday

For the first day, two days even, Anne had been able to convince herself that she had just strained her body, overworked it in some way. That must be the reason, she told herself. But as one of her quiet new maids laced her into her corset to Anne's silent discomfort, she had to admit that there was a tenderness that had not been there before. She was sore, and it was persistent. She bowed her head, praying to God that she was imagining it all, that it was a product of her fear and not a real symptom. She stifled a yelp as her new maid tugged the top of the corset tighter together.

"You all right, my lady?" the girl all but whispered.

"Yes, fine." Anne stared out the window.

For all the morning, Anne knelt on the floor, hands clasped with more desperation than she'd been able to muster for the past few days. The world seemed to fade back around her, as though only she and her body existed: two figures independent of one another, mutually uncommunicative, each keeping secrets of its own.

"Please," Anne whispered over and over. "Please, please, Lord. Please."

When she sat down to break her fast, long past noon, Anne adjusted the bodice of her dress and felt a dull, taunting pain. She placed her hands on the table before her, one palm on each side of her plate. Her eyes closed and she begged God again, trying to force back tears, begging Him to listen. She hadn't felt a presence from Him in so long.

"Would you care for anything more to eat, Your Majesty?"

Anne looked at the assortment of food that had been prepared for her. It looked enough to satisfy the whole room of women – and yet, Anne knew, she could consume all of it herself. Was this tendency familiar, she wondered, or did she imagine it? But she never had before – she never had, she had prided herself on that, there had been talk of Katherine's psychological symptoms that manifested themselves physically, although there were many who would accuse Anne of the same – and now, dear God, it seemed that the reverse may be true. If only she could show them all. _You see_, she'd say, brandishing – what? – she was not sure, _I've got no need of false anything. There. You are proved incorrect._

Yet she couldn't be sure. And the admission would not work in her favour. And she was in the Tower, awaiting likely death. And it might not be true at all. Anne buried her face in her hands, laughing from her stomach, abdomen contracting with each peal, and suddenly she was crying too, tears leaking from between her fingers. She slid one fingertip over the slick surface of her emerald wedding ring. Gasped for breath.

"… Your Majesty?"

"No, my dear," Anne said between chuckles, wiping the mucus and hot tears from her cheeks. "I shan't eat any more."

v.

Late Afternoon

Apparently, she'd taken to crying for hours at a time. Cromwell licked his lips, remembering how he'd envisioned his tongue lapping at the salt water on her neck, and refocused on the page. He'd insisted on twice-daily reports from Kingston, and was running the poor man ragged with questions, errands, and tasks. He would find some way to thank him after this was all over.

Cromwell blew on the mug of steaming apple cider that Mrs. Lockton had pushed on him this afternoon. He was learning not to argue about which libations he would accept. And she was right: it was delicious.

He wondered why she was crying. It wasn't as though she was shocked at her imprisonment and the impending trial – she had known this was coming for some time. Apparently the crying was hysterical, inconsolable. She'd bury her face in her hands, or in her arms as she leant over a table or her bed or even the floor, in prayer, choking out Latin phrases in between sobs.

Kingston wrote that the guards lamented her miserable state and wished to ease her suffering, begging Master Cromwell to write how they could help improve her happiness. Cromwell sighed into his cider, closing his eyes and shaking his head when he saw that part of the letter. So these men were all softened toward Anne already. How long had she been in the Tower? A few days. She wasn't interacting with the guards at all – only Kingston and her ladies-in-waiting, which he had finally sent – he had seen to that. And already the guards favoured her. _Lord help us all,_ Cromwell thought.

Wiltshire had been taken into custody the previous evening, and Cromwell awaited the first report of his behaviour; although given the old man's screaming as Tudor guards hauled him toward the dock, which still echoed through his ears, Cromwell could guess at how it would read. Gone was the hope that the Boleyns would make this easy for him. He would be an old man, too, by the time he finished with them.

vi.

When Jane's eyes made their fourth furtive flick at her younger sister, who sat on the other end of the great padded seat in Wolf Hall's open lower chamber, Lissie sighed and lowered her book. "Yes?"

"Nothing." Jane shook her head and adjusted her needle in her fingers, smoothing the linen over her knee before taking it up again.

"Stop looking at me, then," Lissie grumbled.

"Are you not my sister?" Jane asked lightly, her full lips plucking the words from the air.

Lissie drew her feet closer to herself and rested her open book on her knees. She nodded in acknowledgement.

When enough time had passed that Jane could pretend it was a new thought, the blonde cleared her throat. "You've…" she faltered, and visibly strengthened herself. "You've never had a man, have you?"

The younger Seymour sister's mouth fell open in shock. "What?"

"I mean, you've never been with a man. Have you?"

"No." Lissie's tone was harsh. She wanted to scold Jane for even asking. How could she think such a thing? "You think I would not tell you?"

"I…" Jane shook her head, openmouthed and wordless. "It isn't that I think you would or would not. I simply wanted to know. I shall be married soon…"

"Have _you_ ever been with a man?" Elizabeth cut in.

"Of course not." Jane paused. "I have been, rather, curious recently."

The statement hung heavy in the air. Lissie could not understand Jane's meaning. "Curious about marriage?"

"About the marriage bed." Jane's voice was low.

"And you would ask me… what?"

Jane shrugged again. "I really know not. I just wanted to speak to someone. My sister. Someone I could trust."

"I have kissed a man," Lissie offered. "Lain beside one, but never –"

"Only one?" Jane's eyes regarded her carefully.

Lissie's pulse picked up slightly. What was Jane insinuating? "My husband, Jane." She tried to keep her tone even.

"You've never lain beside another man, other than Anthony?"

After a moment, Lissie raised her hand and made the sign of the cross to honour her dead husband. Normally, Jane would have done this. It seemed her pious sister had changed recently. "He is the only man I have laid beside as a woman might."

"You've certainly outpaced me," Jane sighed.

"Did you think I had given myself to someone?" Elizabeth's curiosity was genuine. Was there some rumour at court?

"No, not given. I just wished to know if there was any insight about lying with a man that you could offer me. I've never enjoyed even that state of affairs. I wish to please my husband." Jane's cheeks dimpled as she smiled, seemingly the beaming bride-to-be, but Lissie felt uneasy.

"I'm sure you will." She smiled back at her elder sister. "You deserve this match. You are the finest of the Seymours. The kindest, and the most pious."

"Well, thank you. The praise is undeserved, I am sure, but appreciated." Why were they speaking to one another as strangers?

Lissie nudged one stockinged foot out from under her plain cotton skirts. She tapped Jane's foot gently. "You are beautiful. Any man who would not wish you in his bed is a fool."

Jane sighed. "But I won't know what to do once I get there. My lips have barely grazed the king's."

"All you must do is kiss him, and the rest will follow, surely." Lissie marked her place with her finger and closed the book.

A little self-deprecating chuckle. "I'm not even sure I can do that," Jane admitted. "If only I could practice beforehand, to bolster myself before the wedding night."

"Ask the king," Lissie suggested. "You will see him before then. I think he would be much pleased at such a request." She winked.

Jane leant her head against the wall behind her, gazing out the window into the bright afternoon sunshine. "But if the aim is to please the king…" she trailed off just as the sisters heard footsteps in the corridor. "Edward," Jane greeted their brother as he crossed the threshold, turning her head to face away from the window. A shadow cast across her cheeks, jawline, and neck. Her eyes, unshaded, seemed to appraise Edward.

"Jane. Elizabeth." Edward gave a polite smile. He had been fitted for a doublet in the most brilliant shade of green, and was wearing the fabric to try it out. It was a far cry from his usual palette of browns, greys, and black. "How goes the afternoon?"

"Dazzling," Jane replied as he drew near. "But not as dazzling as you in your new jacket. Green becomes you, brother. Isn't it handsome, Elizabeth?"

When their eyes met, Lissie saw something she had never seen in Jane's expression before. It was intangible, a slight twitch at one corner of the mouth, a slight depth in the eyes. Almost a challenge, almost malice. Almost a communication – but not quite any of these things. Jane smiled at her sister, the sunlight that poured through the window lighting her cornflower hair and christening her a true seraph. She brandished her needle, her movements delicate, and stabbed it through the linen to wait for later.

Edward smiled in thanks at the compliment. He turned to face Lissie, gesturing for the sisters to part so he could settle between them.

"Very handsome," Elizabeth murmured, backing away and removing her foot from its spot atop her sister's. She retreated as far into the corner of the seat as she could.

"How long will you stay here with us, Edward?" Jane put her embroidery down as Edward rested his head on the window behind them, closing his eyes and basking in the heat of the sun. His green doublet glowed, a veritable emerald.

"Not much longer," Edward replied, rubbing his forehead. "Anne is alone at court; can't leave her too long. I told her I'd come here to make sure all was fine, but I need to be back at Greenwich to keep a finger on the trajectory of things."

"Anne could come here," Lissie suggested. "If you've sent the rest of us back…"

He nodded. "And well she might. I will evaluate what's best for her."

"Will Tom go back with you?" Jane asked, stretching her shoulders and neck. She looked like a cat lounging in the sunshine.

"I think I shall leave him here." Edward's eyes remained closed. "For the time being."

Lissie's eyes darted between Edward and Jane, trying to decide if she was imagining what she thought she saw. Jane chuckled and raised her feet off the seat, stretching her legs and placing them on Edward's lap. "And what am I to do all this time, these last days as simply Jane Seymour? I shall never be your mere sister again," she said quietly.

Edward glanced at her, eyes opening in surprise at the gesture. "You shall find something. Enjoy it." He smiled and relaxed, eyes closing again. "Play queen-in-waiting."

Jane propped one elbow on the back of the seat, her fingertips dangling in the air. They grazed her bare shoulder ever so slightly as she met Lissie's eyes. "I am quite unaccustomed to the authority of that position." She smiled at Lissie.

"We are all at your command, my sister," Edward teased, patting her knee through her thick skirts. Lissie glanced from the contact between her siblings to Jane's fingertips as they caressed her own skin, and up to Jane's face, lovely as ever and still with that discomfiting internalized look. Elizabeth's own expression hardened, but Jane just turned to Edward breezily.

"Is it so?" She placed her palm on the back of Edward's hand. "I shall remember that."

"By all means." Edward appeared drowsy; he seemed different in the country, something that Lissie forgot every time they were at court. "What a hazy day this is. It is beautiful outside."

Sliding down further on the couch, Jane rested her head on its arm and stretched her body out as though preparing to sleep. Horrifyingly, Jane's earlier words, _have you ever lain with a man_, echoed back through Lissie's mind.

Jane licked her lips. "Hazy, hazy indeed," she murmured.

Black anger and guilt squeezed Elizabeth's heart – as with Jane's expression, these were emotions that she would never be able to describe. She pivoted on the seat as carefully as she could and stood. This room was no place for her. She did not wish to stay and see whether she was right about Jane's intentions, or whether her sister was teasing her, or whether she was a lunatic, imagining everything – and, what her reaction might mean. She had scarcely recognized it before, but Elizabeth understood jealousy. And one glance at her brother, nearly dozing, with her elder sister's legs draped across his lap filled Elizabeth with wordless, burning envy.

As she got to her feet, bare but for stockings, Edward stirred. His hand fumbled sleepily toward where she had been sitting. "Liss?" he murmured. Elizabeth turned away, refusing to acknowledge the name he never used in front of others.

"Good afternoon."

"You as well, sister," Jane responded dreamily. Elizabeth did not look back to see if her sister's eyes followed her from the room.

vii.

Cromwell almost snarled at George Boleyn before they even began their interview. The man had let himself fall into such a pathetic state in just a few days, and yet he called himself a lord?

George was wearing a dirty, wrinkled white linen shirt and hose. He hunched over the table like a crook-back, sniffling as though the air carried the scent of roast mutton. Tears fell unheeded down his cheeks, over his chin and dripped – rather loudly, in fact – upon the rough-hewn table at which he was seated. When Cromwell came into the room, George looked like a frightened animal with its leg caught in a trap. His eyes were wide, his stance desperate, his sniveling pitiful.

Cromwell realized at that moment how much he would enjoy this.

He dropped effortlessly into the chair opposite that of Rochford, swung a quarter-turn to face the younger man, and folded his hands on top of the table.

"So," Cromwell started, his tone light, "would you like to confess and make this process easy on everyone?"

George's nostrils flared, and his chest began to heave. "What?" he grunted. "What do you say, Master Cromwell? Surely…"

"Come now, Lord Rochford. I haven't got all day. You have been accused of fornicating with your sister the queen. The evidence in favour of the affair is staggering. Do us all a service and confess your guilt now."

George wiped his nose, squeezing the clear discharge out of his nostrils and into his fingers and then wiping it on his already soiled shirt. The flower of nobility, the queen's brother indeed. "How many men have been accused of adultery with my sister?"

"I assume you are asking how many men have committed adultery with your sister," Cromwell corrected. "Yourself included, the number is five. Thomas Wyatt is also arrested, on suspicion, though we've yet to uncover insurmountable evidence of his crimes."

"Master Cromwell, I…" George stared at his hands, wringing one finger at a time in the opposite palm. It was clear he was preparing to say something that he had planned in advance. Cromwell waited. George cleared his throat. "I believe that some of the men are guilty."

"Guilty," Cromwell repeated.

George looked up, alarmed. "Not all. Not me. But some, yes, I …"

"You accuse your sister of adultery?"

Rochford bowed his head as if in pain. "I do not wish her condemned," he whispered.

"Yet you utter slander that will condemn her." Cromwell sat back in his chair. "To save yourself."

"No!" George cried. "No. To reveal to you the truth. My sister has been driven beyond sense at the king's disappointment. To see him turn from her, it ruined her."

Cromwell took a long pause. "You have sympathy for her state?"

"Yes."

"And for the comparable state of your wife, after you turned from her in a similar fashion?"

The question lingered in the air, and this time George's face read as angry, not frightened. "What talk of my wife do you dare speak? My marital state is no concern of yours."

"As an accused lover of Her Majesty, your sister no less, your entire life is a concern of mine. My lord." Cromwell nodded in acknowledgement.

"You miserable cunt," George spat. "You are green with envy of me, Cromwell. Your jealousy seeps through your every pore."

Cromwell's heart skipped a beat, although he knew what Rochford meant. Still, he raised his eyebrows. "Jealous of your fornication with the queen?" he asked drily.

"I have never slept with my sister!" George shouted, lurching forward over the table. Cromwell slid sideways out of his seat, standing in one fluid movement while George flailed. More clear fluid dripped from his nose. "You know I have never slept with my sister. You envy my nobility, and hers, and that of my whole family. And so you have constructed these lies against us. You will kill us all and then the king will marry Jane Seymour. Can you honestly think anyone is blind to your stratagem? You think us fools?"

"I think any man who would mount and ride his sister is a fool, yes," Cromwell responded, as though it was a philosophical topic that George had posed.

At this, George crumbled again. Holding back a sad smile, Cromwell thought how alike these siblings really were – their temperaments, their intuitions. No, the Boleyns were not fools.

When Lord Rochford slid back into his seat, Cromwell started around the table and placed one hand on the man's back. "Come now, George. I am neither judge nor jury. I am simply a man in pursuit of the truth."

"I swear," George insisted, placing a snot-coated palm over his face, much to Cromwell's disgust. "God, I swear to you, Master Cromwell. My sister is desperate for a son, another pregnancy, a means of pleasing the king – she's been abed with the others, but not me. Never me."

"I think your memory is selective, my lord," Cromwell said sympathetically. "Come now, try and recall it clearly. Your sister is a lovely woman, is she not?"

"She's my sister," George repeated. "I do not see her that way."

Cromwell brought both hands to rest on Rochford's shoulders and leant down so he could speak in a low voice. "Perhaps not always," he agreed. "But sometimes, my lord. Perhaps in some situations, on some days and nights, you can imagine that she is not your sister, not your queen, but just another woman?"

"No." George shook his head.

Swallowing hard, Cromwell prepared himself. "Not in, say, a private room? A closet, an office, a locked bedchamber? When no one can hear or see, when there's no chance of culpability." Behind George's line of vision, Cromwell shut his own eyes against the images, but he could not escape them – as though painted inside his eyelids by Holbein himself, the mental picture of himself lifting Anne and placing her on his desk, ripping the collar from her gown, or kissing her shoulder from purple velvet to white neck, shutting her closet door resolutely and taking her in his arms, refusing to let her escape the space between his body and the wall of garments behind her.

"You're wrong," George groaned, burying his face in both hands now. "You are so wrong, Master Secretary."

"The queen has a reputation for being an enchantress," Cromwell continued. "Does she not entice you with her tongue in your mouth, to put your tongue in hers? Does she not entice you to behave against the laws of God Almighty? The Lord sees your sins, George." He barely managed the last part.

Rochford began to sob now, as Cromwell remembered what it was like the first time Anne's tongue had found its way into his own mouth. His knees weakened and he leant heavily on George.

"The Lord sees your sins," he repeated.

"My tongue has never been in my sister's mouth, I swear it," George uttered.

"Did she kiss well?" Cromwell pounded on. "After one kiss, did you find you could not stop? Did you find you would surely die if you could not possess her fully, once you had tasted her mouth?"

George was trying to grab fistfuls of his own hair, but it was cropped so short – in accordance with recent fashion, of course – that he looked to be caressing his scalp instead.

"Now, George, you've got quite a reputation with women. You lust after them all. Who could think it different with a woman such as the queen, as comfortable and known to you as any woman could possibly be? You mustn't think I judge you personally, my lord."

"She's fucked them all, all the others," George rasped. "She's let each one roll her onto her back, or her front as they please. I know because they've told me, and they've all had her, all the men you arrested and more, Cromwell, and I will name them –"

Cromwell chuckled audibly, removing his hands from the man before him and circling back around the table. He trailed his fingers along its edge before settling into his seat. "My Lord Rochford, you mustn't think you will distract me from your sin. There will be plenty of time for the others later. And I am certain they will have much to say about you. That is why I give you this opportunity now. It is a privilege, George."

Rochford looked up at the use of his first name.

"And I can understand. God knows some women have that power over men, over all men." Cromwell leant forward, holding George's gaze. "It isn't love, it isn't lust; it is some combination of the two. More intoxicating than wine, more deadly than plague. We've all experienced it. Haven't you, George?"

George blinked rapidly and wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. "The others…" he whimpered.

"Shhh." Cromwell's tone was soothing. George gazed at him, intent to discern what Cromwell was saying. "That moment, when you're in the private space, after the tongues, and the hands. Shhh. Don't deny it. We both know the experience to be yours. That first time you put your member inside her, it became an obsession, George. And you'd sacrifice your life to pretend it hasn't been so."

Trying to speak, George cleared his throat. "The others have become obsessed," he offered feebly. "They've said so…"

"I am talking about your adultery, George."

"I will give you their names…"

Cromwell shook his head. "Yours, my lord. Your name is the only one on my lips right now. Later we will talk of others; now I want to talk of you and the queen. Do you love her?"

There was a long pause while George tried to decide how to respond. "As a sister."

"And as a woman."

Rochford squinted as his face scrunched up in tears again. "No…"

Cromwell sighed and sat back in his chair as if impatient. "Tell me, George, about your first time with her. Was it different than with other women, or did it feel the same? Perhaps better?" George remained silent, turning his face downward. "Was she aggressive? Sweet? Did you use your mouths on one another?"

"You are depraved," George muttered.

"Hush now. I am not the one who's been fucking my sister. Speaking of which, did you moan 'sister' while you were inside her? How did it feel – was she wet? Flushed? Surely you remember. It is not the tradition of incestuous adulterers to forget such details."

As though Cromwell had not spoken, Rochford shrugged. "I'm going to be killed either way."

"Whether you admit your incest or not, you mean?"

George glared through reddened eyes. "Whether I make a false confession to you or not."

"Ah. But will it be the axeman or the hangman? A quick death or a long, humiliating one? I picture both; not that I would wish to experience either, of course." He smiled at the queen's brother. "But I think of the axe: quick, with small risk of error. And then I think of the alternative. Being hanged til near death; then dropped on the scaffold – you know they don't let you down lightly, don't you? No, they don't slacken the rope slowly and give you a soft landing. The hangman will hang you til your eyes begin to roll back, I'm told there's a specific point, and the hangman is trained to notice it – well, at least we can hope he's experienced, so he does a clean job – and then slash the rope and you'll fall. Maybe break a leg, a knee, even a hip in the process." Cromwell shook his head, shuddering. "The fall will jolt you back to consciousness, and then he'll come at you with the dagger, a big one like the butcher uses, and slice round the shape of your midsection. The way you'd carve the center of a fruit. But you won't die quickly enough to miss what comes next. Before the roaring crowds, your limbs will be severed one by one – hopefully the hangman will not tire, lest his work become shoddy and bring you more pain – and set aside for exhibition. Last to go will be your cock, which, no doubt, the hangman will brandish before these crowds: 'Look at the member that's been pleasing Her Majesty!'" Cromwell mimicked in a brutish tone.

Rochford's face was a mixture of anguish and rage.

"Just when you're about to bleed to death anyway, he will finally take your head off. Not a moment too soon – again, that's something he's learnt in training. Provided we can find an experienced hangman. So your life will end thus." The secretary made an expansive gesture. "But not your legacy. Because, of course, those body parts will be displayed in the quarters of London, and your head on the bridge."

He chuckled; George continued to stare, clearly envisioning the process.

"Think of it, my lord: your manhood mounted on a spike. At least that way no one will be able to wonder about your prowess. If that serves as any consolation."

Finally, George's lips parted; but he lost his nerve and pressed them back together again.

"But I digress – you were commenting that you will die whether you confess your incest or not. And the answer, my lord," Cromwell met George's eyes, "is yes. You will die. You will never know freedom again. You will never know happiness again. You will never know peace again. Your confession will buy you none of those. The only thing it will buy you is the prize of being cut into two pieces instead of…" Cromwell paused, counting on his fingers. "Seven."

George blinked. "You are Satan." And his mouth closed as though he had said nothing.

Cromwell let out a small yawn, covering his mouth with the hand he had been using to count George's mutilated body parts. "Believe it or not, my lord, I've been called worse. And just this morning." He pushed his chair back. "Unfortunately, I've got to make haste for another appointment. I wish we'd made more progress today; but we will have another chance to talk. The guards will collect you." Cromwell paused and looked at George, who refused to make eye contact. "Isn't it a wonder? A few days ago – the queen's brother, the princess's uncle, the king's brother-in-law, and a political star. Today, a liability. A nuisance. Something to be collected, like spilt lentils or an unpaid bill. It is sad."

He stood to go. George sat rooted. "Fucking demon," he said, clear and even-toned as ever a man did speak.

"Two or seven, George?" Cromwell asked over his shoulder. "Two or seven. Good day."

viii.

The pearls were so small that she could barely feel the space between them unless she ran them through her fingers very slowly; they were pearls meant for embroidery, not jewelry. But they were lovely indeed, and the necklace was beautiful. Nan dangled the long necklace above her opposite palm, facing up, and lowered it painstakingly, almost one pearl at a time, into an endless spiral on the flat surface of her skin. The pearls would not lie flat or perfectly straight, but the necklace itself was lovely, and she thought to herself that the queen would have liked it. Perhaps she would have strung it through her hair, asking Nan to wrap it into a coif or simply draping and pinning it over the top of her head.

Nan closed her fist over the necklace and let it rest on her skirt, the creamy ivory damask of her lady-in-waiting dress. She could not bring herself to put anything else on.

Word had come the previous evening that Nan was to remove herself from the Tower and return forthwith to Greenwich; Anne's new waiting women, the ones chosen specifically by Cromwell, would arrive at dawn and there was to be no overlap. Nan was not to meet the new ladies. They were not to meet her. Anne was to spend the night alone.

Nan thought it cruel, personally. But then - Cromwell had been kind in allowing them these few days together; he had probably not done it out of kindness, if Nan knew Cromwell, and he had certainly not realized what a kindness it had been to Nan. More than the queen herself, to be frank. Nan needed her mistress as much, if not more, than the queen needed her chief lady.

They had parted forlornly, the quiet air around the Tower seemingly so thin that everyone could hear their sniffling and attempts to soothe one another. It was gratifying and uncomfortable for Nan to feel so equal to her mistress; Anne had always treated her well, but this experience in the Tower had been the final link in the chain whereby Nan would defend and remain loyal to her mistress, until the deaths of both.

"I don't want to die," Anne had murmured into Nan's shoulder, clinging to her back like a child.

"Never fear, my lady. You mustn't have fear." It was all she could think to say.

"I've lived a whole life..." the queen trembled with the statement. "I can't believe it will end. I can't imagine what will happen to me after. I'm so afraid. I don't want to die."

"Majesty." Nan had pulled back, placing both hands on her mistress' shoulders. "You must be strong. You must be strong for your daughter's sake as well as your own. Think of your child. We know not yet what is to come, but come what may, you must promise me - in honour of your darling child - that you will remain the strong, pious woman that you are."

Tears leaking from her eyes, Anne had brought her hands together in front of her waist, absently twisting her wedding ring to and fro on its finger. She had nodded along with Nan. "I will be strong."

"I have faith that you will." Nan had surprised herself with the conviction of her words. After all the closeness that had grown between them, Nan saw that this was her duty: to lend comfort to her mistress in her hour of need. She took the liberty of placing her hands on the queen's face, on her cheeks. "You are, my lady, the holy Queen of England."

"Holy." Anne's mouth had rolled the word around. "The holy queen."

"Anointed by God."

Gazing into the distance, Anne had nodded. "Salve and scepter both."

The ladies had started and jumped apart at a knock on the door. "Mistress Saville," a guard had called, "your barge awaits."

Nan had closed her eyes as if in pain. "You'll take care of yourself, won't you?"

"I shall do my best," the queen whispered.

Reaching for the queen's hand: "We shall meet again, Your Majesty."

Anne had smiled through her tears. "Yes, my dear. I trust that we shall."

The guard knocked again. "Mistress Saville-"

"I'm coming!"

"Good-bye, my Nan," was Anne's ornate farewell, enveloping her maid in a fierce embrace. "Don't forget me."

This had started Nan crying too. "No one could," she had said, and turned to go.

Just before the point where Nan would have been unable to hear, Anne's voice had found her one last time. "I am sorry I never found you a husband." Nan had turned back and the queen had met her eyes. "I shall ask Master Cromwell before I... before."

Now, sitting in the queen's old rooms, dressed in her usual uniform and clenching the queen's pearl necklace in her fist, Nan cursed herself for her reply: "Thank you," she had said simply, and walked out. She had not known, still did not know, how to respond to that. How could such a thing be in the queen's mind at such a time - and how could she speak it as an afterthought, the way one might remember to give a friend a compliment after having nearly forgotten? And how could she, Nan, have answered so? When she really should have said, you mustn't think of me at this time; you mustn't tally your unfulfilled favours; you mustn't fault yourself anything, for you have done all a woman could think to do and more; you must put the interests of yourself and your daughter before all; you have been my guiding patroness and the glittering beacon of femininity and regality and intelligence after which I've modeled myself; and I cannot say good-bye back to you when you bid me farewell, for I cannot imagine these rooms, this court, this realm, or my life without you.

But Anne was intuitive. She hoped her mistress knew what she had meant.

ix.

Twilight

Kingston was looking gaunt, strange for a fellow of his age and constitution, having seen all the things he'd seen.

"She's laughing again," he said, the words more a breath than a statement, as he looked over the dark slickness of the Thames.

Beside him, Riche turned his head in interest. "Laughing?"

"She laughs," Kingston explained. "She throws her head back and laughs; she giggles like a child; sometimes she verily howls as though someone is telling her jokes. I've seen her clutch her middle and double over, nearly screaming with laughter. But she often cries at the same time."

Riche's lips were parted. He licked them, clearly fascinated. Cromwell could only imagine what he was envisioning. "From the laughter?"

"Hard to tell."

Cromwell cleared his throat. "She is clearly mentally unwell."

The constable shook his head. "She is of as sound mind as you and I, my lord. Sounder than I, at points."

"Then explain the weeping and laughter," Cromwell replied with a roll of his eyes.

"I can't. It is as if she is not a mortal woman. She seems a figure of myth more than flesh and blood." Kingston stared ahead as if watching her, as if she floated before his eyes in the deep twilight. Cromwell swatted the flies that buzzed round his head, trying not to think on how many occasions he had had similar thoughts.

"Laughing and crying," Riche said, his words, like Kingston's, an exhale. It seemed that Anne's magnetism was contagious, not to be contained within the great grey fortress of the Tower. "Lord have mercy."

Cromwell signaled for the oarsmen. It was time to go back before the pull of her near presence became too much. The dock was temptation enough. "Amen."

"I've taken to changing the guard," Kingston said suddenly, as the men turned to go. "As frequently as my staffing inventory allows me to do. So the men guarding her don't have much time, to strike up a conversation, or..." he shrugs.

Cromwell wrinkled his brow. "They wouldn't dare." It was a statement, and also a challenge.

"They like her," was all Kingston said in response. His eyes were cast down. "They respect her."

"They are her gaolers."

Kingston just nodded: yes, my lord.

Back on the barge, Cromwell sighed and sank in his seat, which was becoming a habit that he didn't care to quash. He had to rest sometime. Riche twitched beside him. "The Tower guards like her," he murmured, shaking his head. "Jesus Christ have mercy."

"Didn't we talk about this?" Cromwell responded. "I told you : you are not alone."

"I take comfort in that," Riche nodded. "How are her new ladies?"

The secretary shrugged. "Kingston didn't voice any concerns or complaints from the queen, so I assume she's satisfied with them."

"And if they like her too? And the guards?"

With a sigh: "Out with it, Richie."

"What if they help her escape?"

Cromwell chuckled. "From the Tower? You jest, surely."

Riche slid down level with Cromwell; both men gazed at the night sky. "Kingston likes her, too, my lord."

"He said so?"

"He did not have to." The solicitor general paused. "What would you do? I cannot imagine being in your shoes should the queen escape."

Cromwell took a deep breath through his nose, smelling the dirt-and-grass smell of the Thames and the riverbank. "I don't think she'll run."

"But what if she did?" Riche chuckled. "Can you imagine? Her maids disguise her; the guards lead her out of the Tower; Kingston hails her a boat and she sets sail for the New World."

Smiling at the image, Anne Boleyn stowed away on a ship to the Americas, Cromwell shook his head again. "Don't put that picture in my mind. I've got enough business to concern four men. Don't make it worse."

"Could be," Riche teased as the lights of Greenwich came into sight. "The guards favour her. And so does Kingston. Anyone you put with her is going to take a liking to her; that's the way she is. You must know that, my lord."

Cromwell let out a yawn - he had to be furtive with his yawns these days; he couldn't yawn around any of the courtiers, lest they sense his fatigue - and groaned as he stretched his arms. He imagined and remembered a nose against his; a weightless hand on each shoulder. He would give her a healthy head start. _Go and I will let you go._ "I count the days until the trial," he muttered as they docked outside the palace.

x.

Evening

Anne Stanhope had had no news of her husband, who had said he would be back as soon as he could set things to rights at Wolf Hall. Having taken Jane there, Edward could hardly dump his siblings off and leave them be. Jane was the next Queen of England, and her sojourn in the country needed to be properly supervised and arranged. Anne Stanhope had refrained from reminding Edward that Jane was a grown woman, her own person, and had been so for twenty-five years. He must do as he willed, and she knew that he would.

That did not mean she prayed any less for his hasty return to Greenwich. Not because she missed him so terribly - although she was pleased to find that she did, indeed, miss him; and he had seemed reluctant to part from her as well, she had noted with a spark of pride - but because the court was uncomfortable without him. The queen was gone, her ladies disbanded but still about, wandering and lazing like a herd of lost sheep. They were teary, guilty young women. Anne Stanhope would advise her sister-in-law to retain none of them for her future retinue. They were used goods, anyway.

King Henry was even less predictable than usual: he prowled sometimes, raged others, and then withdrew for periods of silence. She hoped this was just some sort of withdrawal or adjustment period and that the king had not utterly lost his sense. She would not wish that sort of husband upon Jane, or anyone.

The other courtiers, for their part, tiptoed around Greenwich as if on broken glass. Many had retreated to their apartments to ride out the storm, emerging only when commanded, doors opening just enough to let pages and maids in and out with covered trays of food or baskets bursting with laundry.

Anne Stanhope, of course, maintained her small household and was comfortable with them. But the nights were uncomfortable, and the days were long. Edward had been gone four days, and this was his fifth night absent from her bed. She knelt before a crucifix, pleased at least that her husband was not there to tease her, and prayed that he would be there when she woke up. She prayed that he would awaken her. That she would rouse to the mattress shifting as he climbed in, travel-weary and dusty.

She loved her hair. It was thick, slightly wavy, and shone like polished mahogany. It was a true pity that she could not wear it down always, she thought. She spread it over her shoulders while she prayed, vaguely chiding herself: the Lord would be no more likely to grant her prayers because she looked attractive while making them.

Anne Stanhope draped her dressing robe over the back of a chair very near to her bed, just in case - she didn't know what. In case she needed it. She left the bedchamber door unlatched, though she glanced at it more than once, trying to decide if that was wise. But if Edward were to come back, she wanted to be sure he could get in. So she slid into bed and doused all but one candle, a thick one in a porcelain cannister, which she would let burn all night. She turned down the covers on Edward's side of the bed.

xi.

Lissie skipped dinner, and skipped the evening time, where the family usually sat downstairs in the parlor and talked as the world turned golden and then dark purple. Jane came to knock on her door, asking her to come down.

"I'm ill," Lissie said through the cracked door, and shut it in her sister's golden face. She didn't want to see any remnant of this afternoon there - if she looked at Jane or Edward she would stare and imagine, seeing - or thinking she was seeing - swollen lips, mussed hair, a look of victory on the virginal future Queen of England's face. Bewilderment, or even worse, pleasure and satisfaction on her brother's.

No, she decided; she'd just as soon stay in her room.

"Lissie?" It was Tom. "You're ill? What's the matter?"

"I'm sick," she called, rolling her eyes.

There was a pause, and she knew Tom's expression was incredulous. "You were fine a few hours ago."

"Well," she replied, measuring the syllable, "now I'm not."

"All right. Do you need anything?"

"No. I'm fine. I just need to rest." His retreating steps were quiet, shuffling - uncharacteristic. She wondered what her siblings were saying about her downstairs.

Although she did not want to see him, Lissie grew sorrowful as the night wore on and Edward did not appear outside her door. Did he not care what was wrong with her? Did he not even notice? Was he too busy tending to the superior sister? She could not focus long enough to read, nor did she care to practice her Latin. She undressed, dropped her garments in a pile in one corner, and pulled a clean nightshift over her head. She combed her hair, taking time to work out each knot and snarl gently, and brushed until her hair fell silken over her back. She knelt and said her prayers, drawing them out. She stood and bit her lip. Then she picked up her discarded clothes and carefully folded each garment, stacking them on her vanity.

Finally, she sat and watched her bedroom door for several minutes.

Heaving a great sigh, Lissie crossed the room and pushed against the door, sliding the bolt into place. She hesitated, and then dragged a trunk in front of it, ignoring the unelegant scraping as she shoved wood against wood. She stood back and admired her barricade. And then she blew out every candle and crawled into her bed.

Hours later, the moon hung high in the sky and Lissie's eldest brother rounded the corner to her room. The rest of the house slept. He had to go back to Greenwich in the morning - actually, he should have left before - and he wanted to speak with his sister. He knew her. She wasn't sick. Something was wrong.

He tried the door and was utterly stunned when the knob would not turn in his hand. He tried to jar it, hoping it was just stuck; but no, it was bolted shut, closed resolutely against him. She hadn't just locked it. She had locked him out. "Lissie," he whispered, but of course she couldn't hear him. He flattened a palm against the wood. Then he sat down, leant against the wall, and waited.

xii.

Midnight

Katherine Brandon's full lips pressed to her husband's shoulder just before she laid her head on his bare chest. A sheen of sweat slickened her forehead, and when he exhaled, the sigh of satisfaction in the marital bed, the cool air chilled her perspiration to a spring dew.

"So - it'll be over soon?" she asked. Her husband didn't have to ask what she meant.

"Yes, thank God." He crooked one arm up and placed his hand behind his head. The other hand traced up her side, drawing a wave of gooseflesh in its wake. "The trial is set for the 12th, I believe."

"All of them together?" she couldn't help but smile at the thought. It would be a circus.

He chuckled too. "No. The men first - Boleyn last - and then the whore."

"It'll be a busy day for the Lords."

"But not difficult." He tapped a steady, jaunty rhythm on her hip. "Guilty. Death. Next. Guilty. Death. Next. And so on."

"True."

"And then, Queen Jane." He said her name as though relieved, although Katherine knew that he was hardly acquainted with Henry's next bride.

"She seems sweet," Katherine offered. "She'll please the king. At least for a time. Perhaps she won't always be sweet."

Charles Brandon yawned, sinking further down on the bed and pulling his wife with him. "It is still an improvement on the current. Who, for all her supposed wit, was never sweet."

"Pity he cannot find a woman who is witty and sweet," Katherine mused. "I don't think Jane Seymour is particularly bright."

He kissed her forehead. "He could find one, but alas, I've stolen the only one in the kingdom and hidden her away for myself."

Grinning, Katherine squirmed around to kiss his lips. "And I? Married to the kindest, handsomest, and most courageous man in the realm."

Charles gave her a stern look, drawing her back by the shoulder. "Have you taken another husband in secret?"

She swatted him, resettling on his chest. "And sweetest, and most virile."

"Just don't speak thus in front of the king. He's supposed to be all of those things."

Katherine giggled. "I won't tell if you won't, my love."

Several minutes later, lulled into silence, Charles thought his wife was asleep. Suddenly, her breath swished across his stomach.

"D'you think she really did all those things?"

Charles Brandon cleared his throat. "I think the evidence will stipulate."

She made a little sound, like "mmm," and nodded. "But Master Cromwell has stipulated the evidence. So, then, I guess I have my answer."

"I guess so." They fell silent again, but the way Katherine had phrased her comment gnawed at him. Below the surface, he understood what she was saying.

As if reading his thoughts, Katherine twisted to look up at him. "But - all those men? Does it make sense that she would behave thus? When the driving force of her actions in the past years has been to hold onto her husband?"

He met her gaze. "I may be the things you said before, wife, but I am not a witty man. I do not think of things thus. Whichever way the evidence leads me," he held up one hand sideways, fingers together like a blade, like a hand signal for directions in combat, "I will go."

"You are capable of great thought, Charles," Katherine assured him. Beautiful Katherine who adored him.

Charles Brandon smiled slightly. She was wrong; he knew it. But he just said, "I choose not to think greatly, then."

Katherine yawned, mouth forming an "O," and wriggled back toward the pillows. She wrapped a spare sheet about herself; her nightshift had been flung elsewhere. "Then that is your choice, my dear duke."

He snatched her hand and kissed it, wishing he could be all she believed him to be. Wishing her words wouldn't gnaw at him. Wondering if God had put those words in her mouth to confirm what Charles was already feeling: that something was not right. "Indeed it is, my duchess."

Long after his wife fell asleep, Charles lounged awake in their bed. He watched the embers of the fire across the room as they weakened and died, isolated and illuminated points of orange-red. They looked so soft and inviting - even more so as they weakened - but would still scald the flesh from your bones if touched. Almost dead, and yet still dangerous. Not safe until they were gray and lifeless. Did he really believe it? he asked himself. The answer was that it didn't matter. These embers must be burnt out.

xiii.

Well, it was official. Her new maids absolutely thought her mad. Although she couldn't blame them - she'd wept for a good part of the day, laughed a great deal at her own misfortune, and spent hours on her knees praying. They'd long since gone to bed and Anne was still praying, albeit pacing about now. Her back was sore. She insisted to herself that it was from kneeling on the stone floor for such a long period.

"Dishonesty," she whispered, nodding. "Pride. Arrogance. Malice - and toward my own family. My sister. Envy is closer. Envy for my sister Mary. Hypocrisy. I married for love, why should she not? I wished to be happy, but I would have denied her happiness of her own, had she but let me. And since then, I've coveted her for what she has. I've coveted her life and I've had dark thoughts about her and her husband, and their baby. Maybe they've more than one baby now - I don't know."

Anne twisted her fingers together. "I've been ungrateful for my life. For all the wonderful things I've had. I've had everything I could want, everything any woman could ever want. And yet I've never been satisfied. I've wanted to lord my possessions and my graces over others, while never fully appreciating them myself. I've wanted others to be envious of me, but I've never been satisfied with myself or my station. I've been always greedy for more. I've always demanded more, more... even from those who love me. Loved me. Even from those I love." She took a deep breath, steeling herself before her next confession.

"I've wished that my daughter, Elizabeth, had been born male. I've not appreciated her. I've avoided her at times because she was a..." Anne squeezed her eyes shut. "A disappointment, to both me and my husband. I do not blame him for this sentiment, for he did not manufacture it in my heart, but the expectations heaped upon me did contribute. In my heart, Elizabeth is my greatest accomplishment and my dearest joy, but I have wished her different than the way she was made. I have questioned your will and your choice, oh Lord, and that is a grave sin. I have not trusted in God.

"I have cursed you, and I have mocked you, for not giving to me what I have desired. I have desired sons, and more power, glory and luxury for myself and extravagance and status for my daughter. Power for my daughter. Power for my relatives, other than my sister, my own envy of whose happiness drove me to black hatred of her state. Drove me to mistreat her, to damage beyond repair the only relationship of its kind that I could ever hope to have. We're sisters. I don't even know if she's well. And it's my fault."

When she began to weep, Anne forced her whimpering to be quiet, muffling it into her bed, letting tears mix with saliva in an effort not to wake her ladies. She suspected that their time with her would only grow rougher and, anyway, she wanted solitude for her confessions. She laughed at herself. "More greed." The laughter intensified, and soon she was stuffing the bedcoverings into her mouth to dull the sound. But then she couldn't breathe.

Exhausted, Anne rolled herself backward onto the floor, flattening her aching lower back against the cool stone. She propped her feet on the side of the bed, her bed, and laid her hands palm-up beside her hips. "I put my own well-being ahead of that of others. I put my own ambitions and desires above those of the person I loved most - my husband. I have not shown my love to him as a wife should. He has been unfaithful, and I have been envious. And I make no excuses for that. My heart ached at his betrayals of me, as it aches now at his abandonment of me. But had our union been more agreeable, starting with my own behaviour - who knows? - we could have been happy. Had I born a son, I am not sure that would have changed anything, except perhaps to have helped me avoid this fate. And I take full responsibility for the neglect of my child.

"I beg you, oh Lord, please take pity on my poor daughter. She has not been treated as she deserves, as any child deserves. She deserves everything - the best of everything. Please, if I could ask one thing, it would be that my transgressions will not mar and ruin her. Please let my daughter prosper and please give her everything I could not. If her father wishes to slander me to her... let him. Let him," she stopped short and fought back a fresh wave of tears.

"For the good of Elizabeth."

Anne fluffed her loose hair underneath her - her head was aching from the rough floor - and tugged at her stockings. "As for my other faults... there are many. Too many to recount in a single plea. I beg for your assistance, oh Lord, instead in helping me account for all of my faults - that I may confess them and beg your holy forgiveness."

That word, _holy_, stuck on Anne's tongue. She thought of her relationship with holiness. His Holiness, at the first, was no friend of hers. Pope Paul, like Clement before him, had seen fit to dismiss her as a shameless jade with no care for tradition or the sanctity of marriage. She had been crowned dressed like the Virgin Mary, hair flowing and clad all in white and gold. She was married to the Defensor Fidei, who had established his own Christian church to follow more closely the teachings of the good Lord. Her father had likened her pregnancy with the king's son to that of Mary's pregnancy with the Christ-child - which, although she had scoffed at the sacrilege then, did seem appropriate in many ways. The saviour. The light.

Today, Nan had said to her, _You are the holy Queen of England_.

The holy Queen of England.

Yet she had miscarried that baby, that son, as it were. She had walked in on Jane Seymour sitting on her husband's lap - divine timing? - and such fires of jealousy and rage had been lit within her that it had burnt the bond between mother and child. Her son had weakened, faltered, and in the end she had bled him out all over the floors of Greenwich and all over her royal bed. Where she had conceived him, sweating and moaning on top of Henry. And Chapuys had written that she had miscarried of her saviour. Of her saviour. And she had.

And her husband had not only created a new church - he had disowned the previous one, the traditional one, the largest in Europe and perhaps the world. He had slain dozens of monks and nuns, burned and beheaded, slaughtered people of God - far more virtuous than she - all in her own honour. In honour of Anne Boleyn, the Great Whore. All this bloodshed and rough change had been forced upon England, England that Anne loved dearly, in no one's name but hers. It may have been called the King's Reformation, but there was no doubt whose it really was.

For love of her, she had seen the most amiable, ardent lover transformed into a beast, a black shell of a man who loved to hate and took pleasure in the pain of others. And she had stood by his side and accompanied him, nay, encouraged him, to continue down this path. She had helped turn him from Defender of the Faith to catholic infidel.

As for the Virgin Mary, all in gleaming gold and unsullied white with hair flowing as a sign of fertility, she had been crowned six months pregnant with the fruits of an unmarried consummation. Several unmarried consummations, to be truthful. And despite her constant prayers for her own will, for what she selfishly wanted to seal her place at the king's side, she had given birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl. Whose first image of her mother - though Elizabeth would surely not remember - was of Anne crying, despair marring her motherly features, miserable and dissatisfied with her plump and rosy child because it had the wrong genitalia.

And as for papal opinion of her, a shameless jade with no regard for marital sanctity, she had slept with Thomas Cromwell - her husband's secretary; not once, but twice; both times, clothed, desperate for the physical sensations, the carnal, forbidden manifestations of raw lust. She had willingly submitted. She had more than submitted; she had engaged, willingly, passionately, and if she was to tell the truth, she had relished every moment of both their encounters. She had fantasized about him and her heart had seared at sight of him, at the sound of his voice, at the very thought of his hands on her. All this for a man who was not her husband. She had let a man take her on his desk in the middle of the day, and she had shut them away in her cedar closet to make love after midnight while the innocent souls of the palace slept, unknowingly slumbering through the adultery of their queen. A shameless jade, the pope had called her, disrespectful of marriage and Christ, worthy of neither crown nor country. _Holy._

She stared, unblinking, at the ceiling above her. Her hands folded together, fingers interlacing over her abdomen. "Thank you, oh Lord," she whispered in wonder, truly unsure whether to laugh or cry. "I see it all now. Clear as..." she shook her head. "How could I not have seen it before? I am no victim. I am the unholy queen."

**UP NEXT:**

When Cromwell got there, the king had managed to roll two logs from his fireplace and now stabbed at them with a stiletto. The assassin's tool did not appear to be a match for the still-smouldering logs, which skittered a little on the hearth with each blow. Cromwell felt Daniel, the king's page who had come to fetch him, fade away over his shoulder. _He's raging about, trying to shred his bed sheets,_ the boy had explained._The Duke of Suffolk has just gone out. The king was weeping. _Cromwell had sighed. _What would you have me do?_ Daniel shrugged, _Someone said to me, fetch Master Secretary._

Cromwell took a step forward as Henry leapt over the log and crouched on its other side, needling the smoking bark with the tip of the blade as one might torture a cat. "Majesty."

"Cromwell," the king threw over his shoulder.

"Are you well, sire?"

Henry laughed a little, lifting the knife and using it to scratch his scalp. "Of course I'm not well. Would you be well in my position?" Cromwell said nothing. Henry held up the stiletto. "I had barely seen this in years," he explained. "Beautiful, isn't it? This was sent to my father as a mourning gift from the pope, after my mother died. He wrote a message of how he admired families like ours, families that were like his, and the way that such a family holds itself together against oceans of danger and discord. He offered us his blessings and vowed to pray for my lady mother."

"That was very kind of him."

"Very kind, very kind," Henry agreed, flattening his palm underneath the blade and turning the dagger over. "Pope Alexander. He died a few months later, as it were. And on the last day of that year, his eldest son armed a few of his ministers with blades like these, and they stabbed to death all of their own captains. Families like those." The king shook his head. "Can you imagine such a thing?"


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N: Hello all! This chapter came together nicely and swiftly, and I'm fairly happy with it – although it's a different style and I'm experimenting with some things. I hope it goes off well.**

**Jessica, hello and welcome! I really appreciate your time and effort in reviewing =) Anne and Cromwell don't see each other this chapter and won't have interaction for the next few at least. If you've noticed, I try to keep their scenes together few and far between because I feel it makes them that much sweeter, and heightens the tension between them. If you've got any ideas or suggestions for anything, I'm always open to hearing those! Thanks again for reviewing.**

**Rae! Dear lord, child, you need to sleep. So if I published 3 weeks ago, and you had finals in 2 weeks, does that mean they're over now? Hope so, because I don't want to distract you from something so important. I can't imagine that you are not good in English class, as you are so excellent and observant with literary devices. Very glad you liked my Mary Boleyn and Wyatt sections… I almost forgot about Mary and then I was like OH wait jk gotta make a scene with her. Lol. As for the "incest, omg." flail – I'm glad you're flailing instead of freaking out. I have no idea where this stuff is coming from (disclaimer: I don't condone incest) but it's a really fun plot twist, and what's a girl to do when her Seymours just won't behave? Please let me know what you think of that as it continues to develop. I'm loving melancholy Anne right now… the "unholy queen" was a sad moment, one of many. She's reflective, but I'm trying not to make it boring so hopefully it isn't!**

**Happy reading, all!**

i.

He's drowning in the Thames, flailing and kicking even as the thick, viscous water fills his boots and saturates his jacket. He can't remember how he wound up in the river - whether he was on his way to or from the Tower, that is - and he is panicking because he knows he can't swim. He's tried to learn on several occasions but he's never been able to get the rhythm; his body and his mind are dissimilar in that sense. His mind adjusts and learns quickly. His body less so.

Struggling toward the surface, he waves his arms like a... well, like a drowning man. His mind takes a moment to note the irony. But the water is pulling him down, slowly but certainly. His gold chain has floated up above his face. He latches onto it, unwilling to give it up.

Out of the depths, just beyond his reach, he senses something. He is not alone. He has never been comfortable swimming in dark waters, although he will not admit it as a fear. He tenses, stops struggling: there is another creature in this river. It is approaching him.

And there it is. Sliding from the darkness, floating really, chilling and almost sensuous. It is a serpent, a long, slender serpent as thick through as a fence post. Its head is wide and flat, eyes broad and deep and shimmering with a light of their own that illuminates the waters. 

Instantly he fears the snake. The slithering alone gives him chills; but this is no garden snake, it's a large, long, quick serpent that could pierce his neck from jaw to chest with just one bite. The snake hesitates and draws back, and there is something familiar about the gesture: he should recognize it, but he can't. His mind is too clouded. Vaguely he wonders how it is that he can see clearly in the murky water.

Then it begins to advance toward him, not as quickly as he would think it might, and he fumbles for his knife. He doesn't always carry it, but he has it today, folded in its leather pouch on his belt - underneath his coat. The snake is closing in on him, somewhere between eye- and chest-level, eyes glittering and tail fluttering just enough to be a distraction. He has the handle in his palm and he wrenches the dagger from his belt, likely tearing the pouch in the process. He draws the blade and the serpent shrinks back, not into a spiral but slithering amongst itself - he thinks of gathered ribbon - but it's too late and he strikes, the adrenaline of victory setting his veins on fire.

A red cloud explodes into the water, making it even more opaque and disorienting. He doesn't know which way is up and which way is down. He doesn't understand how he has not died yet. He doesn't have much fight left in him; his heart pounds and his lungs sear.

Into his hands falls a thick piece of debris - or so he thinks, but its weight increases as it settles on him and he feels that it's a human. Someone else drowning? He tries to discern a face, a gender, whether there is any movement, but while he is pawing at the body with uncharacteristic desperation, he feels his lungs give over to bursting and the world around him goes white.

The white doesn't last: soon he is on his side, his person weighed down by layers of soaked garments, on what appears to be a long gray expanse of dock - yet he sees no river, no people, no sign of life. He struggles to sitting and jostles against another object. It is a body, the body, he assumes, from the Thames. He turns over and reaches for it, afraid and weary because in his heart he knows who it is.

Anne's eyes are open, blue and wide, glittering at him in the harsh sunlight. Her lips are wet and her loose curtain of hair spills over both shoulders, streaming water down her body. She's dressed simply in a shift that clings - and if the light were better, he would be able to glimpse the expanse of her body underneath it. She seems to stare at him without seeing. In spite of himself, he puts his hand on her cheek. It's dewy to the touch. "Anne..." he says, not bothering with formality. "Anne." He shakes her a little.

"Thomas," she replies, below a whisper. At least, her lips form the word. His first name. Which she has never used for him.

"What-" he squints, looking around, and finds he suddenly cannot bear the caliber of sunlight. "Where..."

He trails off because she doesn't respond. She lies still, not bothering to shove his hand away and not sitting up to look around with him. Where in God's name are they? What's happened? It's hot, and the water they came from so cold - and how did they get out? How did she fall in?

He turns to her, fully, lying down on his side to be level with her. Thoughtlessly, he traces her jaw with his thumb. Her eyes barely register the contact. "What's wrong? We're-"

And then he sees it. Her shift isn't white anymore, but red, deep scarlet spreading from top to bottom. Anne is bleeding on the dock, the nectar of her body staining her clothes and the wood beneath them, and - yes - it's already made contact with his jacket.

He throws himself at her, almost on top of her, grasping her shoulder. "Dear God, what's happened to you? What's happened?" he demands, trying to sit her up. She tries to assist him but she's weak, and she tips sideways, her hair still pouring ravines of Thames water all over the surface beneath them. The hair shifts and reveals the deep gash, an open wound on her long neck. She's so white in the stark brightness that the wound stands out like a glittering ruby, like a piece of jewelry that's slid slightly amiss. Her eyes shine up at him even as her lids grow heavier.

"Thomas..." she says, and wilts forward. He gathers her in his arms, heedless of who might be watching, and feels the warm stickiness of the blood as it begins to course over him too.

"Who did this to you?" he demands, wondering if his dagger is lying about somewhere. If he could kill a serpent with it, God knows what he'll do to the man who's mutilated Anne.

With a quiet exhale, she slips through his fingers. He feels for her pulse, reaching for a slender wrist, and it's faint and slow.

"No, no," he mutters to himself, lying her on her back as gently as he can, "no, no, no." Absurdly, he covers the wound with one palm as if this will help anything - and after a moment's hesitation, he puts his mouth on hers, trying to breathe life back into her. Her lips are still wet, and he knows this is not how they have felt before; there is nothing on the other side. He tries to push air into her throat and keep it in, as if she's dying from a punctured lung as opposed to bleeding to death. "No," he says between breaths. "No. No!"

At length he hauls himself up, his heart beating hard and fast enough for both of them, and wipes his hand over his sweat-covered face. It is only when he looks back down at Anne, her body still curiously invisible through what should be a transparent linen shift, that he realizes he has wiped her blood all over his face. He looks away, trying to compose himself. He fumbles for her hand and folds his fingers through hers without looking.

He swears he hears a faint, "Thomas." He jerks back and looks at her. Are those dazzling eyes never going to fade? Does she live? But there's no movement, no breath. Her eyes are faint slits now, and there's something familiar about the way she looks and the way she curled against him as she died, and suddenly the two images come together as one: the wide-eyed serpent underwater, shriveling back after he attacked it. _Who did this to you? Thomas._

He puts his hand on her face, tilting it back and looking at her wound. He sees what he has done. And there beside them, as if from thin air, is his dagger, clean but for a coat of blood halfway to the hilt. He snatches his hand back and sees that he has left a bloody palm-print on her perfect white cheek. He turns his hands over to find that they are suddenly slick with blood. He looks at her shift; it is covered in blood. The surface of the dock: blood. Everywhere, blood.

He remembers how the serpent approached him, almost cautiously. Almost amiably. And he has stabbed her to death.

Cromwell jerked awake with a tear rolling down his cheek. He sat up and wiped at his eyes, angry, and found more tears there. His heart was galloping, and it took him several minutes to convince himself that it was a dream. He checked the other side of his bed several times, fairly well expecting to find a raven-haired corpse soaking his sheets red.

ii.

7 May

Morning

Lissie woke from an unspeakable dream, images of tangled, dewy limbs and green jackets dancing before her eyes until she blinked them away. It was early, much earlier than she liked to rise, but she had gone to bed so early last night that she supposed she was rested already. She rubbed her eyes as they adjusted to the dimness. She groaned: it wasn't even dawn yet.

At least, she reasoned, she could avoid her siblings awhile longer. Another image flashed through her mind as she got out of bed - of Edward and Jane awakening together in one of their beds, probably Jane's - and she shook it out. It was absurd to even consider that a possibility.

She wished she had not pushed the trunk in front of her locked door; had that really been necessary? She moved it as carefully as possible to one side, leant against the door to make the unlatching as quiet as possible, and cracked it open. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a dark figure in the hallway shifted. It was Edward, rubbing his eyes as she had moments before.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded in a whisper.

"Why was your door locked?" he replied, jabbing his knuckles against his eyes.

"I..." What reason did she really have for having locked her door? "I wanted to be alone."

Edward squinted up at her. "I came to make sure you were all right."

"Took your time, then," Lissie muttered.

"What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing." She tried to walk past him, but he snatched her hand. She could not resist him.

He met her eyes. His were bleary, and pathetic, and she couldn't overlook the fact that he had apparently spent the night on the floor outside her locked bedroom. "Wait. Sit with me a moment."

Drawing her robe tighter around herself, Lissie sat opposite him, crossing her legs. She waited.

"Why would you not come downstairs last night?" Edward asked after it was clear that she would not initiate conversation.

"Did you not hear? I was sick."

"I heard. I knew it wasn't true. That's why I came to speak with you."

Elizabeth could not help but narrow her eyes at him. "After you'd finished tending to Jane?"

"What on earth-?" Edward broke off, incredulous, trying to keep his voice down. "Tending to Jane? We were all sitting downstairs. It wasn't just me and Jane."

"And before?" she asked blandly. "When you came in with your green jacket and reclined between us and..."

"And?" His eyes were wide. "And what? Dozed off?"

"Together," she glared.

He lowered his head, a gesture that said, _you cannot be serious_. "Liss. How many times have you and I dozed off together? No - more than that - how long has it been since I spent the night in your bed?"

Before she could stop herself: "But we're..."

"Different," he finished for her. "I don't know what to say. She's my sister; I was tired. It was a drowsy day."

Lissie sucked in breath, suddenly wishing she had had this talk with Jane instead. Jane would gloat, she suspected; Jane would give her a little maddening smirk that Lissie had seen developing lately. Edward would deny it. "Jane wants to practice marital activities before she weds the king. She told me."

She watched for his reaction, and her brother just wrinkled his brow. "I had Anne speak to her about her first time with the king. I wonder if..."

"She wants to come to the marital bed experienced. At least a little experienced. In those matters."

Edward chuckled. "I'm sure Henry wouldn't mind tutoring her."

Lissie hesitated. "No..." she shook her head. "She doesn't want Henry. She wants to be ready for him the first time they are... together. She wants you to show her."

Silence hung between them. Edward drew back in disbelief. "Me? What are you talking about? Did she say..." He trailed off, eyes vacant.

"She certainly suggested it. And you should've seen the way," Elizabeth's voice wavered a little, "she looked at you when you came in." Her own eyes were on the floor.

"Jesus Christ have mercy," Edward managed. He glanced at her, and then away. "And you thought?"

"I don't know what I thought. I didn't want to think."

"But you did. And that's why you wouldn't come downstairs. God's sake. You thought I'd... I'd... do whatever it is that Jane wanted?"

Elizabeth rolled her lips together, the whole idea suddenly seeming ridiculous. "The way she draped her legs over you. And you had your hand on her knee."

Edward palmed her kneecap, almost roughly. He squeezed it, one thumb tracing a quick arc up her inner thigh. "I've got my hand on your knee."

"She slid down on the sofa and her skirts were all over you... it just looked..."

"Lissie, you slept in my arms two nights ago. Can you really think I would behave so with her?"

She swallowed and shrugged, eyes swelling with tears. "She is your sister as I am your sister."

Edward chuckled sadly. "You aren't my sister. You're my other half. You are as much a part of me as my heart."

She was so silent and still that Edward grew worried. But then, she wiped away a tear and said, "I was jealous."

He shook his head. "You needn't be."

"I thought you might... I don't know." She buried her face in both hands, embarrassed. "It sounds foolish now."

This time, Edward really laughed, albeit softly. He beckoned her closer, placed both hands on her shoulders, and rested his forehead against hers. "Now you know why I don't want you married again. Imagine living that agony every day."

"But it's different... it's different," Elizabeth insisted. "I'm glad for you and Anne. I'm glad you get on well."

"That's because I could find no purer or better woman than you, including my wife, and you know it," he teased, tapping underneath her chin. "Yet there are dozens of brighter men, more handsome men, fairer men, within a stone's throw. And they'd all throw their wives in the mud for you to walk over."

Lissie lowered her eyes at the praise. "No. And I would go far to find someone to care for me as you do."

"That may be true," he allowed. "And I would keep you close. And only you." He pressed his lips to her forehead.

She exhaled, relief and exhaustion filling her to the brim. "And I you." She wiped away a few stray tears and Edward brushed his fingers over her eyelids.

"No more crying," he said gently. "You should only be crying when we're fighting."

Lissie laughed, sniffling. "I wish we would not fight so. We used to bruise each other - remember?"

"Still do," Edward breathed against her skin. "Only now the bruises are different."

iii.

Afternoon

It should have been more of a surprise than it was for Jane Boleyn to appear in Cromwell's office late that afternoon, tear-stained and lips quivering - but then, he had known when she accused her husband of incest that she would not be able to stand by the outlandish allegation. It was slander spoken out of desperation at neglect; since then, her mood had tended toward desperation of being bereft. And so she had come, he assumed as his page showed her in, to throw herself on his mercy, not for her husband's sake, but to forgive her for her lie.

"My lady Rochford," he said, cutting off her sniffling and pleas. "You must understand our present circumstances. Your husband and the queen await their trials for adultery; they await the verdict for their crimes, which amount to treason. Your allegation was no light one."

"I was under duress," she insisted. "I lost my sense. How could I accuse my husband of such filth? Clearly I was not within my wits."

He pressed his ten fingertips together, five sets of matching digits. "And yet you spoke the words. And you knew what they meant. You were not encouraged..."

"But I was unfit for questioning. I'm emotionally unstable, Master Cromwell, doesn't the whole court know that? I'm angry with my husband. But he is my husband, and he's a good man, he's not a man who would copulate with his sister."

They stared at each other. In the silence, Lady Rochford wiped her nose, blinking desperately and trying to appeal to him with her anguished expression, or so it seemed. Finally, he cleared his throat. "My lady, I fear there is nothing I can do. The trials are set. They must go forward."

Her face crumpled. "But - no, but please..." She trailed off and fell to weeping. Cromwell's eyes ticked between her and the stack of papers on his desk. Would he never get past distractions?

How he wished Anne would plead and lament and have her emotions plain; but no, her behaviour still veered between wordless sobbing and possessed laughter. And fascinatingly, he had been told, every one of the accused men had lulled themselves into quiet in the Tower. Not even Smeaton or Weston raged and shouted. All was quiet, except for the unholy gaiety or grief of the queen. Yet Kingston insisted she was mentally stable and would be more than prepared to defend herself at her trial. Cromwell had, in the privacy of his office last night, combed through a stack of legal books, his furtive search lit by a single trustworthy candle. He had been looking for an exception - a crevice in the letter of the law which would excuse Anne from the judiciary process. She would die either way, but he had hoped, somehow, to spare her the absurdities of the trial. Maybe, he had hoped, they could try her by proxy. Perhaps if she could be found emotionally unstable, or a threat in a crowd, or even to be unfit for a public appearance by virtue of the delicate condition of her health, or her recent miscarriage, or anything at all, anything that would keep her locked in her rooms in the Tower instead of being paraded about like a common harlot. Which, of course, was precisely what the trial would confirm her to be.

"I will appear at the trial and create a public spectacle," Jane Boleyn suddenly blurted, hands clasped as if making a deal, when in reality she was attempting to make a threat - and failing, at that. He sighed. "I will run screaming through the Hall, declaring you a liar and a heretic and-"

"Promptly be escorted out and thrown into the Tower yourself." He shook his head. "Lady Rochford, what's done is done. The best you can do now is to behave with compliance and not risk your jointure. Much of the inheritance and assets of your marriage will likely be claimed by the crown after George is dead. If you manage to handle the situation with grace and empathy for the king - who, may I remind you, is the parallel victim to your status as a cuckold - perhaps you can retain some of that in your own right. And then you will have no concern for your survival. Otherwise, it will be up to the king's mercy to provide for you."

Jane continued wringing her hands together. She nodded along with his statements and paused, giving a little whimper as she collected herself. "I understand, Master Cromwell, and thank you for explaining it to me. I cleave to your good counsel."

"No need to thank me." He waved a hand.

"But I will say." Jane Rochford turned on her heel, her pink nose standing out against the rest of her profile as she turned. "They are not guilty." She kept her hands clasped and departed, nodding at the page who had seen her in.

The page, William, looked after her. "I apologize, sir-"

"Don't. But let's put her on the no-admittance list." Cromwell pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb.

"We've got a no-admittance list?"

"Well, we do now. Let's have Lady Rochford as its first item. It'll be a work in progress." Cromwell yawned and smiled at the same time to let the boy know he was joking, but William dutifully got a fresh piece of parchment and scrawled "Lady Jane Rochford." He deposited it on the Secretary's desk.

iv.

Late Evening

"Did you ever suspect it?" The king turned his aging, sagging face on his best friend. Charles Brandon paused a moment while he thought how to answer.

"Your Majesty well knows that I had no high opinion of the lady's morals. Sexual or otherwise."

"But did you suspect she was lying down for a variety of my courtiers? My friends?"

Brandon shook his head. "No."

"Now that you do know..." Henry trailed off. "Now that you know, what do you think? D'you think the signs have perhaps been there all along, and we failed to see them? Do you think she's been flaunting this under our noses?"

Again, Brandon had to pause to think which way was best to answer.

Anne knelt on the thick rug, not having the strength to endure the discomfort of the stone floor tonight. Her hands clasped as if in prayer. She stared out the nearest window, at the London sky - a deep blue, glittering with diamonds. She thought of how many nights she had spent admiring the stars with Henry, how they would walk hand in hand, stopping to kiss under the secret cloak of midnight. And pull away to stroll along, whispering and planning their lives. They had loved to walk together. They had done so every summer, until the last one. The summer when More was in the Tower. He had ceased to walk with her, ignoring or politely refusing her invitations.

"Too tired to walk," Anne murmured aloud, recalling his responses. "Leg is bothering. It's supposed to rain."

_We used to walk in the rain_, she had said to him the first time he declined. _We used to love it_.

"Not today," she scolded herself, echoing the words that would never leave her mind. "Not today, sweetheart."

"I think the lady is adept at hiding secrets," Brandon managed, choosing each syllable with the utmost care. "I think she is surely capable of concealing an affair."

The royal eyebrows twitched up. "But six?"

"No one suspected. No one had any reason to suspect. Without suspicion..."

"I wonder when the first one started. I wonder when she first strayed. Always did have a gaggle of men crawling about in her wake. I wonder when it was, the first time that she thought to herself, I needn't be faithful to the man who loves me."

Brandon paused. Although it was ridiculous, he had never thought of the king that way before. He would never have described him as the man who loved Anne Boleyn.

She had tried again and again to determine when it was that Henry had chosen to love her no longer. For she was certain, beyond certain, that it had been a choice. Henry did very little by mistake, and indeed he had never lost interest in her. His attention had merely gone from loving and passionate to angry and resentful. The birth of Elizabeth? No. He had loved her past that. He had loved her madly, obsessively.

She could not say she had loved him the same way. She had loved him, yes. In a way, she loved him yet. But her love was a steady love, a love borne of respect and gratitude and lust, a love that had developed over time out of companionship and the bond formed between two people who have spent such time together. They'd waited for Rome, for Wolsey, for Katherine and Cranmer. They'd waited for Elizabeth and the two babies after her. They'd waited to love, waited to marry, waited to reign together. She'd waited to be his wife and watched him turn his kingdom upside down in order to seat her to his left and place a crown on her head. He was the father of her child, and when she looked at Elizabeth, she saw his beautiful hair framing her own features in her daughter's face. How could she not love such a man?

But none of these facts had stopped Henry from turning, willingly, from her. As a result of the hours of meditation and prayer, as well as the final, blessed abandonment of pretense and duty of thought, Anne had realized that Henry had chosen to withdraw his love from her. She had done nothing, short of bearing a daughter and having a temper - a temper which, in previous years, had excited him - to cause him to hate her so. To cause him to use such language and physical force with her. She absolved herself of guilt of that. It was her behaviour, and his personality, rather than a sin of hers, that had soured their interactions. Although the blame was still largely hers, Anne took comfort and respite in this confession. It absolved her of the guilt at her imperfections. She was anointed, yes, but not holy. She was a woman flawed. She was not ideal. But, despite the sacrilege of the thought, neither was her husband.

"It's hard to say, my lord. Women are difficult enough to understand without this added layer."

"I've given her everything. Everything a woman could want and more. Have I not?" The king's gaze pierced the duke.

"More, Majesty. Much more."

Henry sank in his chair, draping a hand over his mouth, almost feminine himself. "And yet there's no recourse. Nothing in return. No son, no love, no loyalty. What kind of woman is that?"

He knew much better than to remind the king that a woman had no influence over the gender of a child she carried, of course; but Brandon pursed his lips. No love? Of all the things Brandon would say about Anne, and all the ugly comments he would make regarding her behaviour, starting almost a decade ago, he would say for certain that he had seen her love for the king. He had seen the way she looked at him: devoted, humbled, sometimes even adoring. Her personality may be grating, and it had grated on Charles Brandon for many years now, but she had certainly demonstrated her love for her husband. Henry's anger clouded his perception, that was more than likely - and under normal circumstances, Brandon would have agreed eagerly. Tonight, though, and these last days, there had been a knife-point whittling at Brandon's soul over the allegations against the queen. She was base, she was screeching, but a common whore? A grasper, for certain. A reckless harpy... he could not quite reconcile that profile with the Anne he knew.

She had been thinking back to the days of her childhood, when she and Mary and George had been small enough that they all slept in one bed - not always, and certainly not because they were allowed to, but because they were three children to whom nothing else existed. A tangled heap of limbs, dark hair and raucous shouting, that was the Boleyn children.

Anne closed her eyes in pleasure at the vividness of the recollection. She had not imagined those nights in years. She could almost feel the simplicity of the bed on her skin, the sensation of worn cotton bringing a profound reminder of the days when little had mattered to her beyond what game she and her siblings would play next. They would fall into bed, exhausted, at the end of the day, and sleep the sound slumber of those who haven't a care in the world. That would have been - what - 1510 or so. Her husband had already been a young man, happily married to his beautiful Spanish wife. And Anne had dreamt sweetly of honeysuckle and snow fights, depending on the season, blissfully unaware of what the future held.

"The marriage must be annulled," Suffolk agreed. He gripped his goblet harder than necessary. "For propriety's sake. So that it never existed. So that Your Majesty was never married to her."

Henry nodded. "Indeed. Cranmer works on it even as we speak. He will find a way."

Cranmer, Anne's partisan. Anne's ally. He knew better than to raise that point. Cranmer must be, would be, Henry's partisan now. Solely Henry's. Cranmer would cease to associate with the Boleyns at all, Suffolk was sure. The man was not stupid. Draining his wine, Brandon plucked up a little courage: "And... Elizabeth?"

"She's... she's mine," Henry insisted, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than his friend. "She has to be mine. She - she has my hair. And my vigour. Anne's face, but mine. My child." His eyes shone with tears.

"She is indeed Your Majesty's daughter in every way. No mistaking that."

The king's face was dark. "Perhaps she is the fruit of Anne's faithfulness to me. Perhaps she began her recreational lovemaking after she recovered from the childbed, and was cursed with the inability to carry a child to term after that." Henry's eyes sought Brandon's, asking him to concur.

"Perhaps," was all Brandon could say. Or, he thought, perhaps Anne, like every woman, took an unwilling gamble with every pregnancy.

"I think she's had to do with even more men than this," Henry said suddenly, fiercely. "I would not be shocked at any behaviour of hers now. Cromwell could stroll in here and tell me she's got a stable of lads hidden away somewhere, and I would barely blink an eye. I'll have no more pain on account of that harlot." It was a resolution, a promise.

Brandon was out of words at this point. "Well," he murmured, "then Your Majesty might do well to leave her in the past entirely, and to move forward with your own life in heart, mind, and body alike."

"As she has apparently done with me. With me, who gave her everything."

A fleeting memory scuttled across Brandon's mind: Anne, how long had it been, a week, two weeks; hastening through the long main corridor in Greenwich, her pale yellow gown torn and a gash on her lip. He tipped his goblet up so the king would not see him grimace. "Everything, my lord."

Anne had always thought it funny what some had named her, some being the pope and his cohort as well as most of England and various other parts of Europe. Not funny so much as ironic: "the Great Whore." Who remained a virgin throughout years of this mockery, to wed her husband a chaste woman. In spite of the gifts and attention Henry had lavished on her during their courtship, she had refused to give herself to him, prompting many outbursts in which he claimed that he had given her everything and she would give him nothing. Which was not entirely true. She gave him what she could, and kept the rest for their marriage bed.

In truth, she had feared the consummation. She had feared the moment when she would submit to him. The lingering doubt over her ability to please her new husband had gnawed at her for those years as she awaited their wedding day and night, the moment where she would have to prove she was worth all he'd moved to have her. She'd known she wouldn't be ready. She would never have been ready for a moment of such importance, where years of want and wanting would culminate in just minutes' worth of passion - a few hundred moments in which to express the joy and longing and fulfillment of nearly a decade of waiting for one another.

And, she had wondered for years, would he lay himself down afterward and think to himself, _This is what I have awaited for so long? This?_

As it had happened, their first time had not been thus. There had been joy, tenderness, relief. After the final release, he had held her, murmuring incoherence of love. She had closed her eyes and thanked God who had brought her this life. Who had brought her together with this man who had given her, would give her, everything.

The king slipped to and fro between melancholic heartache and blinding anger, like a man who could not get his balance. All the while he insisted that his wife meant nothing to him. Her adulteries were beyond his scope of concern.

"I'll tear her limb from limb. I'll strap her to the rack and grind the wheels myself until she splits apart at the seams. God, what I'd give to hear her scream for mercy." The king had palmed a heavy candlestick and he squeezed it hard, until Brandon could see the imprints of the carvings in his king's flesh.

As the night wore on, Henry made scores of threats - he would carve open her womb to prove she had been unfaithful; he would force her to fornicate with another man in public as punishment for her debauchery; he would order the Tower guards to violate her, one after the other, in the most humiliating way possible. The duke cringed at these vows. These were not the vows of lord or king. They were the vows of a coward, a puffed-up dandy with a wound he would not acknowledge.

The king descended into tears, hysterically insisting Elizabeth could be none other than his child - but all the miscarriages, those were the fruits of Anne's adultery. The dead babies, the ones not strong enough to survive their mother's poison womb, were evidence of her sins.

"God has seen her nature, and He has punished her. And He has spared me. I cannot imagine a clearer picture of his approval of my kingship, my decisions... all but her. Perhaps He's put her in my path to test me. And I've prevailed. I will prevail. I will not yield to her charms," Henry murmured, wiping pathetically at his tears. Charles stopped trying to make sense of the king's words at the point when it seemed that what Henry needed was an audience, not a conversation. The duke tried not to think of all the invalid points apparent in Henry's speech. Anne's miscarriages mirrored those of Katherine of Aragon. The common ground was Henry. And the king had certainly yielded to Anne's charms, long ago. Earlier tonight - or earlier this morning, as it were - Henry had waxed long over his love for her, talking mournfully about all he had done for her sake. But it seemed Henry wanted to play different roles.

The king was getting drunk, his words less crisp and his statements less comprehensible with each empty goblet. It seemed the pages had been dismissed, or they knew when to stay away. Jugs of wine had been brought and they sat on on a table near the window sill. Henry served himself and his friend, as if they were two men, any two men trading tales of heartache.

"Your Katherine," Henry said suddenly, breaking off a tirade about how Anne had demanded gown after gown for each state occasion, without a thought for his exchequer and the backbreaking cost of her coronation. "Your little wife. How is she?"

Brandon paused, trying to think what the king wanted him to say. She was his love, a part of his soul, as no woman had ever been. But Henry was brokenhearted. And he wouldn't want to hear that his best friend was happier than he had ever thought possible. "She's in good health," he offered. "She likes court. But she worries for Your Majesty."

The king's face twisted in sympathy - for himself, it seemed. He nodded. Yes, it was only appropriate that all at court would grieve for their prince's plight. "She's a kind woman. A very kind young woman. You're a lucky man, Charles." Henry sniffed.

"All I know about love, I learnt from Your Majesty," Charles replied, making a deferential gesture with his hands. "It is none of your doing... this... it isn't your flaw, my friend."

Henry was rocking himself where he had sunk to the floor, velvet dressing gown pooled about him like liquid fire. His face scrunched tight and he choked back a sob. "Why has God cursed me with such a woman?"

"So that Your Majesty can prove," Brandon managed, trying not to clench his teeth, "your ability to rise up in spite of these... obstacles." The proper words were eluding him; the proper sentiment and sympathy alike. Yes, he wanted her gone. Yes, he would have the king believe anything about her in order to make her meet that end. But for all the love he bore his king, Suffolk could not see any reality other than this: the obstacles in Henry's path, the source of the ill luck by which he saw himself victimized, were all results of his own kingly choices. No man, as Henry had once said to him, ruled over a prince of the blood. And no woman either.

v.

8 May

Morning

When Cromwell got there, shortly after dawn, the king had managed to roll two logs from his fireplace and now stabbed at them with a stiletto. The assassin's tool did not appear to be a match for the still-smouldering logs, which skittered a little on the hearth with each blow. Cromwell felt Daniel, the king's page who had come to fetch him, fade away over his shoulder. _He's raging about, trying to shred his bed sheets,_ the boy had explained. _The Duke of Suffolk has just gone out. The king was weeping. _Cromwell had sighed. _What would you have me do?_ Daniel shrugged, _Someone said to me, fetch Master Secretary._

Cromwell took a step forward as Henry leapt over the log and crouched on its other side, needling the smoking bark with the tip of the blade as one might torture a cat. "Majesty."

"Cromwell," the king threw over his shoulder.

"Are you well, sire?"

Henry laughed a little, lifting the knife and using it to scratch his scalp. "Of course I'm not well. Would you be well in my position?"

Cromwell said nothing. Henry held up the stiletto. "I had barely seen this in years," he explained. "Beautiful, isn't it? This was sent to my father as a mourning gift from the pope, after my mother died. He wrote a message of how he admired families like ours, families that were like his, and the way that such a family holds itself together against oceans of danger and discord. He offered us his blessings and vowed to pray for my lady mother."

"That was very kind of him."

"Very kind, very kind," Henry agreed, flattening his palm underneath the blade and turning the dagger over. "Pope Alexander. He died a few months later, as it were. And on the last day of that year, his eldest son armed a few of his ministers with blades like these, and they stabbed to death all of their own captains. Families like those." The king shook his head. "Can you imagine such a thing?"

"Not from your own family, Majesty. The parallel drawn was obviously an inaccurate one."

"Sneaking devils, I think they were," Henry murmured. "Not that I ever met them."

At this, the king turned to look over his shoulder at Cromwell. Henry raised his eyebrows: you spent time in Italy. Did you ever meet them?

He remembered when he was a boy, no older than Daniel, the sunlight washing over him, bleaching him to nothing against the ocher tiles of Rome. He had followed his good sense out of England, away from Putney, from his father. He had gone first to France; learnt the language; moved on. Lower Europe had been abroil with territory squabbles for some time, and as he picked up more languages, Thomas Cromwell had found himself a useful clerk to many a minor nobleman. His willingness to aid a master in any way granted him close access to his employers, and his experiences all over the continent yielded knowledge of economics, culture, and organization that no Cambridge tutor could have taught. In the small, bare courts of these dukes, these counts, even some princes of the church, the men who ruled the south part of the continent congregated to conspire and ally. Their faces were golden brown and leathery, lined from sun and laughter, but when they spoke he would see the traces of concentration etched into their foreheads and around their eyes. They all dressed in fine, beautiful silks. Even the clergy. Especially the clergy. And he had been the pale boy from England, not yet worthy of having his name known. His mouth was closed, and his ears were open.

It was there, in Italy, that he had a few times served Niccolo Machiavelli, a guest of one of his masters. And he had served him in the most literal sense: Strawberry wine, my lord? He had tried to follow the conversation, an unholy mixture of Latin and Italian, participial endings strewn in the wrong language, choosing whatever word suited best.

On one such occasion, across the table from Signor Machiavelli, relaxed in a glowing chair of velvet and with a lazy smirk on his face, had been Lord Cesare Borgia, the Duke of Valentinois. He had accepted the pastries that the young Thomas Cromwell had offered and asked for water alongside his wine. The conversation had droned long, and eventually the duke had swiveled in his seat. "Sit down, boy, this won't be over shortly." Without waiting to see if Thomas Cromwell complied - which he did - the pope's son had turned back to his friend and advisor. The pale boy from England had strained his ears, forcing himself to translate as rapidly as they spoke, thinking to brand their philosophies into his mind for lifelong adherence. From these great men, some of the world's leading minds, he had yearned for words of profound meaning. Instead, he'd heard talk of money, women, the price of beef. All men were men, he'd learned. No matter how great.

"I," he said, then halted. "I made the acquaintance of Alexander's son. Once." It was not so much an acquaintance as several goblets of wine and a few pastries, but the king would not want to be reminded that his chief adviser was once a common page.

Henry chuckled, closing his eyes, and relaxed somewhat on the floor. Cromwell saw how destroyed Henry's spirit was. The king obviously had not slept; he swayed where he knelt. "And?"

"Powerful. He exuded power, through his very person. Much like Your Majesty does."

"Not right now," Henry interrupted, then fell silent again.

"He was, indeed, the kind of man who gave a sense that he would do what it took to achieve his ends. And, intelligent."

Henry ran a hand through his hair, which needed washing. "Son of the pope who murdered his own cardinals."

Well, Cromwell thought, they never really proved that. "Then perhaps, violent ambition ran in their blood."

"And I can think of another such family. A grasping bunch of hypocrites, bloodthirsty hypocrites, that is - pretending to be Godly while in fact they represent evil. And think to align themselves with my family." Henry growled the words, his voice low and loathing.

Cromwell paused. He was unsure what point the king was trying to make. A harmless comparison, or something more? "A family like the Borgias, Your Majesty?"

Henry's eyes burned when they turned upward and found Cromwell's. "Whose brother and sister behave questionably under the eyes of an affluent circle. Whose conduct makes a mockery of all those who would be ensnared."

Ah, Cromwell thought. The lady is on his mind.

Even in his years in Italy, he had never managed to glimpse the physical form of the woman who apparently epitomized lust, sin, and angelic beauty. He had only heard tales of her, of her alabaster face and the eyes that changed colour, hair like spun gold that a man would forsake all dignity to bury his face in. The rumor was that the elder Borgia siblings, famously close, had been lovers since adolescence. One could hardly imagine such behaviour from the children of a pope - but then, Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander, was an almost defiantly unconventional pontiff. From public simony to thinly veiled murder conspiracies, the Borgia papacy was a chaos for the Catholic Church comparable to the current reformation. Although the eldest son had made his name as a cardinal, he had later stripped himself of his scarlet robes to become a statesman and was an example of a man after his own destiny, with little regard for societal expectations and ethical bindings. To look at Cesare Borgia was to look at a man with many layers, many secrets, and few regrets. To hear him speak of his sister, to hear him say, "Lucrezia," as though the word itself were a prayer, was to understand that the legendary, lethal sister of the Duke of Valentinois was what drove him. Whether she drove him intellectually, spiritually, or sexually was anyone's guess. The young Thomas Cromwell, watching the formidable Valentinois converse animatedly with Machiavelli about his sister's recent favourite book, had sensed a passion, at once territorial and worshipful, that superseded expectation for such a relationship - and perhaps propriety.

"I think I see your meaning, Majesty," Cromwell murmured, bowing his head. "And yet it is a different circumstance..."

"Is it? Is it so?" Henry's eyes were vacant. He shook his head. "Much the same, it looks to me. Appearing at first to be heaven-sent, a family of breeding and moral integrity. And as time wears on, it becomes clear that their beings are filled with evil: evil shining from the eyes, evil intent, evil thought and deed, and most of all, blackly evil intelligence to hide all their sins. To fool those who would promote them, and support them. And love them." His breath caught a little. "To fool us all."

Barely listening, Cromwell was thinking of the persona of the lady, the duke's sister whom he had never met. There were similarities, yes, between the two ladies; the king was correct there. Famous for their hair and eyes, long thick curls that they wore unbound in defiance of tradition. Each with an innocent beauty that belied her intelligence, her mastery of manipulation and deviant behaviour, that would have you believe them bright, vivacious ladies with no clue about their true thoughts. Each worshiped by men. Each envied and scorned by Europe.

The king was going on yet, casting the father in this hybrid family, half Boleyn, half Borgia. There were even, Cromwell would admit, similarities there. All this talk was to no purpose, but Cromwell, subtly taking stock of his master's reddened eyes, raw nose and quivering mouth, chose to let him go. The king wanted to talk; he wanted to expel his painful thoughts in some intellectual form. Discourse was one of Henry's favourite pastimes, and right now he wanted someone to listen to him. Someone to make him feel sane.

"And look at all the harm that other family did, compared with the swift abbreviation Your Majesty will give to this one."

"Before the thieving brother makes overmuch of his own will," Henry concurred with a sniffle. "Thanks be to God."

It sounded more like Henry was thanking himself. "The son is most ineffectual, my lord. He does, by and large, his father's bidding. At least I would think."

But the king shook his head. "And did most not think so of the cardinal? Only for him to astound them all with his behaviour. Desecrating the holy order as he did." Henry made a face of disgust, as though the Duke of Valentinois had insulted him personally. As though Henry had never scorned the papacy himself.

And he had a point, Cromwell thought, but yet not. Yes, they both had dark hair. They both lived in the shadow of their illustrious fathers. They both had illustrious sisters. They both lived their lives adjacent to the hint of scandal, although the source of that scandal was, for both, in constant rotation. Both were handsome, intelligent, and possessed that swaggering charisma reserved for men like Henry Tudor and Charles Brandon, and denied to men like Thomas Cromwell, the pale boy from England, who must find another path to success. But conviction, loyalty, boldness of passion? There really was no comparing George Boleyn to Cesare Borgia. One had given up his sister on the instant, bartering her life and reputation to save his own miserable skin. The other would have twisted a knife between the ribs of anyone who dared look at his darling the wrong way. The first had said, she's laid down for every man at court, any man at court, name him and I will swear to it. The other, if questioned, would probably look you in the eye and then carve it out as a warning to never think of his sister undressed again.

"Indeed, Majesty. But you yourself know of Rochford's cowardice. At least we can say of Wiltshire that he has fortitude. However misguided-"

"Evil," Henry interrupted.

"However demonic. At least he is a man."

He had sent the king a detailed report of George Boleyn's first interrogation, fully aware that the king's current mindset would lend itself to Cromwell's end. Henry had not seen his brother-in-law sniveling and lashing like a willful child, but Cromwell had been sure to paint the picture of the dishonour Rochford had brought upon his family - not that the Boleyns needed any more dishonour, with the present state of things. There had been no royal response, but now Henry swallowed and said, "I could barely believe the slander George uttered against her." His voice was small, and his words were so unadorned that Cromwell paused before answering.

"It was shocking and... damaging, to say the least," the secretary agreed.

"Sit down, Cromwell. Sit. You needn't stand." Henry waved at a chair, and Cromwell backed into it, murmuring thanks. "I cannot understand why he would confess others' guilt so readily."

There was doubt in the king's voice. Cromwell's eyes ticked up and down, trying to evaluate what this meant. "I would think to distract us from his own sin, Majesty."

Henry nodded along, but his eyebrows bobbed. "And yet it has not, as he must reasonably have known. It sounds like the words of a desperate man. Like... hysteria. Confusion. Disorienting fear."

Each hair on the back of Cromwell's neck pricked to attention at these vacant musings. The king himself was hysterical, confused, and disoriented, albeit from rage and sorrow more than fear. But his observations were closer to the truth than Cromwell would even admit to himself. He had suspected this would happen: that the king would waver and he would have to reinforce him, the way, in the past, had Wolsey, More, and Anne. King of England, Defensor Fidei, and Supreme Head of the English Church he may be; Henry would always need validation for his choices. It was the way of the man. Cromwell licked his lips. "Or the same grasping traits you noted before, my lord. Seeking to see others absorb the penalties for his actions. It does sound like something a member of that family would do."

"Unless..." The word hung in the air between them. Cromwell was trying rather ardently not to show his disquiet. Henry swallowed. "Unless, perhaps it's the senseless, instinctive response of a man shocked."

"I... I do not see that as..." Cromwell chose his words with painstaking care. "As a possibility. Majesty."

Henry stared, still, into nothingness. "Mayhap it might be some error or misunderstanding. And the transgressions have not been so well hidden, thus, for all this time. Mayhap it's a different truth, there's a different truth behind it. And he hasn't had her. None of them have. I haven't been betrayed by my friends, and... my wife."

Trying to calm his galloping heart, Cromwell forced his chest to rise and fall at the normal rate. "Your Majesty..." His mind struggled through the king's words and their meaning, trying to unravel the true emotions behind the cloudy royal stare, trying to understand what his master really wanted to hear and what would drive him over the edge. "The love of your subjects clouds you. The kindness of your heart wishes to excuse those who harbour disloyalty in their chests." He watched tensely as Henry nodded, licked his lips. He was still staring into the empty air. Cromwell blinked and swallowed before continuing: "I myself have experienced many moments of doubt. Many inklings of self-examination, asking myself the core reasons for my belief in the queen's misconduct and that of your courtiers and friends. It is a harrowing thing, to force oneself to look at the facts of such blatant sin and to attempt to reconcile it within the bounds of law, to put together an effective and legitimate summary of behaviour that defies every law of nature. I understand the dilemma. I understand Your Majesty's scruples, in theory at least."

"I just..." Henry trailed off, speaking as though to himself, "I have a hard time picturing it. I've known her - all of them... so long and well. I cannot understand what drives such people."

A sigh of relief nearly escaped the secretary's lips. He had interpreted correctly. He readjusted in his chair. "And yet, what can we deduce about what drove those others? That other family? To me, at least, that remains a mystery still. Perhaps in hundreds of years, scholars will puzzle over these same facts. Perhaps interested souls will engage in discussion about what drove our own traitorous family and the queen's partners. But this much I promise you, sire." Henry's eyebrows twitched at the harsh edge in Cromwell's tone, although he kept his eyes down. "No one will be standing about arguing that they were innocent. No scholar will declare them innocent. No interested soul will lament her as a victim to circumstances. There will be no doubt of the guilt, no question of the adultery, no whisper against the incest. The facts of the sin will be laid bare before the eyes of generations."

There was a long silence. Cromwell waited for argument, for a plea for further validation. The king cleared his throat. "There can be no mistaking it, then, Cromwell?"

"No, my lord."

Henry swallowed and looked up through a greasy fringe of hair. "Sometimes, I think... I think there must be a mistake."

Cromwell shook his head slowly. "No, my lord."

Blue eyes stared back at him, glowing in a familiar, unsettling way. "Sometimes I wish there was a mistake." The words were barely intelligible.

But Henry did not really wish there was a mistake; this, Cromwell knew certainly. Henry did not wish Anne to be spared. He wanted rid of her, he fervently wanted rid of her. What he disliked was the implication of the charges: he, Henry of England, was not enough. He had not been enough to fulfill his wife, causing her to turn to various men of his own court for satisfaction. He was pathetic. He was not a true man, much less the epitome of masculine power, as he would have his image projected. He lacked virility. He lacked vigour. Most damagingly, he apparently lacked the wisdom and intelligence to discover these transgressions on his own. So he was a cuckold, a weakling, and a fool. All would have been much easier for everyone if Anne had died of the plague or during childbirth.

"The only mistake at this point would be softness, Majesty." Cromwell was aware of the gamble of his words. The king sighed, the exhale a release, a relief, to both of them. The secretary breathed out too. He had survived this game of interpretation, and for the moment he was secure in his comprehension. For a moment he could rest. He would enjoy the silence, savouring it like a mouthful of stew, until the moment came when the mouth of his master would open and he would have to set his ears and mind ready. Only now the words mixed not between the languages of Italian and Latin, but between lies and half-truths, the promises of the powerful and the pleas of the weak. Phrases of courtly favour mingled, almost intangibly, with real vows of loyalty; problems of grammar and the dangerous of mistranslation now morphed into the wagering of allies, career, survival. And the pale boy from England would never forget the racing of his pulse as he turned words over in his mind, language to language, meaning to meaning. In truth, that primal fear had never left him.

"I know. I know," Henry murmured, wiping his eyes. "I tend overly toward understanding, toward love. It is a fault."

Had Cromwell not been so practiced, he would have had to bite back a snort. But he was long studied. It had been long since Italy when, barely in his majority, that he had learned that all men are men.

vi.

"Any word on her behaviour? Or any of theirs?"

Anne Stanhope shrugged. "Not that I've heard. But then - I'm not exactly Master Cromwell's confidante."

Edward nodded. "I thought word may have seeped back."

"I've all but barricaded myself," she admitted, eyes downcast. "It felt... uncomfortable here. I was uneasy when you were not nearby. Things being as unstable as they are."

The corners of her husband's mouth turned up, and back down, a sad abbreviated smile. "I'm sorry. Anne." He reached for her chin and raised it, forcing her to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you so long."

"It's all right. What kept you?"

He sighed and traced the juncture of her jaw with his thumb. "Matters of family. They always take longer than we expect."

"Indeed. How does Jane?"

Edward exhaled through pursed lips. "Oh, my. Coming into her own right, I will say. Training for queenship seems to agree with her."

Anne smiled. "She still awaits the consummation, then?"

He paused. "More eagerly by the day."

"Good." His wife nodded in approval. "She should. I am glad she relishes the idea."

"It is..." Anne's eyes narrowed at Edward's uncharacteristic stuttering. "It's a little unnerving. To think of one's sister in such a way."

"In what way is that?"

"Desirous," he said into his goblet.

She let out a peal of surprised laughter. "But you asked me to prepare her..."

He held up one palm. "I know. I'm not sure that was wise."

"Oh?" The smile remained on her face. "Is she misbehaving?"

"No. Jane isn't one to misbehave. She's just..." He shook his head. "She's intoxicated on the idea of queenship, maybe."

"Can't blame the girl," Anne said mildly as she rose from her chair. "Who wouldn't be?" She crossed toward the window, goblet in her hand, and basked in the midday sun.

And she had a point: Jane had spent most of her life indoors, embroidering this handkerchief or that tapestry; she'd expereinced very little in the way of proud or indulgent activities. Although it could be argued that, as a family of middling stature, the Seymours actually enjoyed more autonomy and were less obliged to cleave to duty and presumption than the upper nobility, Jane was a simple woman of simple means who had been completely unexposed to authority and regality at any point in her life - which left her vulnerable to the swift and drastic transition she would make when she became Henry's queen. Her behaviour at Wolf Hall had, he hoped, more to do with an internal war his eldest sister was waging than any genuine motivations or urges. If it were indeed the latter, Edward did not know what he would do. For such a truth would touch him far, far too intimately - making an isolated circumstance into a familial tendency - and he could not admit that such a streak ran within those of his blood.

Somehow, though, Edward suspected that Anne's comment had referred more to the material trappings of queenship. She was still gazing out over the garden view which their new rooms afforded them. "It's beautiful outside."

"Let's go out." The words were impulsive, sudden. "Let's go enjoy it."

Anne chuckled. "We can enjoy it from here..."

"No," he insisted, and she turned. He sat facing away from her, but he had turned his head enough that she could see his profile. He stared at some point in nothingness: eyes fixed as though watching a memory. "I've had enough of hazy indoor afternoons."

"It's hot," she pointed out. This weather was troubling her: cold in the nights and mornings so that she shivered, and perspiring heat during the afternoons.

Edward turned to face her now, with a roguish smile. "So we can take a cool bath when we come in," he suggested.

Still, she hung back, her smile shy. "You want to go walking with me?"

"To make it up to you." He pushed back his chair. "To make up for leaving you alone here for days."

"I wish you'd behave neglectfully more often, then," she chided, her voice a low hum.

Today was the first time she'd worn a new broad-brimmed wicker hat that she'd been given for their wedding; it shaded her eyes and face from the sun. These hats were more the fashion in the low countries, not in gray England where a set of thick sables would prove more useful. She wasn't sure from whom the gift had come, but she was glad to have a reason to make use of it. Edward had poked fun at her every time she insisted on packing it when they moved.

"Things will change soon," Anne Stanhope murmured.

Edward exhaled: _you under-state it._ "Yes. Quite."

"D'you think your family dynamic will change? Less close?"

His brow twitched as he turned to look at her. She turned her head, the brim of her hat lifting at a jaunty angle. "Would you prefer us less close?"

"No," she replied plainly. "Just a thought. With Jane as our queen... it seems there will be less time for the light, joyful things. Less empty afternoons and evenings."

"Well - yes. We will adjust as is needed. Jane will spend her time with her husband, and we'll see how Tom advances... there's talk of... disquiet. In the north."

"What sort of disquiet?"

These were not women's affairs, but his wife was bright and bold, and yes - useful. He cleared his throat and squinted in the sunlight, trying to think how best to answer. "Mmm. Master Cromwell, you know, has been dissolving monasteries and redirecting their funds toward the crown; lining the pockets of the king's friends and ensuring the supremacy."

"All in the name of the Princess Elizabeth," Anne Stanhope murmured.

When he glanced down, all Edward could see outside the brim was the expressionless corner of his wife's mouth. "Shortly, he will require no such conditions for her."

"And very soon, perhaps," Anne grinned up at him, "a prince that is half Seymour?"

"God willing." He squeezed the arm that was looped through his, thinking he was lucky to have taken such a woman to wife. "Of course, such a child would require no measures. There would be no disputing it."

She decided not to comment, not to beseech God aloud to deliver to Jane a baby of the correct sex. "And the unrest..."

"Simmers among the conservatives in the northern shires. They're backward up there, not comprehending the necessity of religious reform. Their churches have served their purpose and set the example better than those down here."

"Ah," she nodded. "So to them, the king levels their abbeys for no good cause."

"Not the king - that's the genius of it. They blame Cromwell."

"But it isn't his fault."

"So you know, and so I know," Edward agreed. "But they'd have us all believe otherwise."

Anne licked her lips and led them off the path, into a shaded thicket. She could hear the river in the distance. She lifted off her hat and fanned herself with it, great billows of air fluttering her hair. She grinned, her cheeks pink from heat, her skin glistening with sweat. She was lovely. "And we, are allies of Cromwell," she mused.

"We, yes. The Seymour family."

"Yet," she plucked the caveat from the air as though plucking one of the new buds from the trees about them, "unless I mistake, you favour reform." Her velvet eyes held his.

"I favour education," he agreed. "Knowledge. Piety."

She glanced down, and then back up. The hat rested at her side. "And your sister Jane, our very near queen. She favours tradition."

Edward wiped his brow. "She doesn't know anything else."

"Would you have her learn? Have her favour education and knowledge as you do?"

"She's content as she is, I think. Why?"

Anne shrugged, shook her head. "I just wonder. Jane being so traditional, and yourself so open - I wondered about religious consistency. And if there's unrest up north... will Jane, as queen, not voice her support in advocacy of those who would cry against the smashing of the churches?"

"That's not her place. And she knows it."

"You're sure? If she's changing already..."

He narrowed his eyes. "But she knows her place."

Anne hesitated. "I'm not suggesting otherwise. But, a woman by practice submissive, suddenly granted authority over a kingdom, and influence over a king... it may be an obstacle worth consideration."

"If she challenges me once, she'll learn never to do so again."

"That's what I mean: you will no longer be the highest potential challenge, when she is queen. Angering you will no longer be her great danger. I thought... I've had too many an hour to think," Anne admitted. "I have, it's true. My mind's run to wild fancies. Your desirous, willful new Jane. Absurd fantasies." She shook her head, the gesture self-deprecating.

Edward tried, and he thought successfully, to prevent his expression from telling his wife that she wasn't wrong. That absurd fancies of desirous Jane Seymour hung ambiguously between fantasy and reality. "You may have a valid idea," he said finally. "I don't think Jane could ever abandon the obedience that has always encased her personality, but... perhaps in learning to be a queen, some unpalatable adjustments will be made."

Anne parted her lips and spoke before she lost her nerve. "And perhaps not, perhaps it's a foolish idea. But changes are certainly ahead, and... Jane must be protected. The Boleyns - they don't protect their own. But surely Jane knows better. Surely all the Seymours do."

The wind shifted the trees, and sunlight poured over them momentarily, Edward's face and forehead warming on the instant. The isolated heat called to memory that afternoon, a few days ago at Wolf Hall: drowsy in the window seat, draped between his two sisters. The way Jane had placed her feet in his lap without hesitation. The way she'd slid down and rested her body over his: familiar, firm. _She doesn't want Henry. She wants you to show her._ No, that was not the Jane he knew.

He smiled at his wife. "You are clever."

"So - I fit right in?" She turned toward the river, from whence the breeze was blowing. Her loosely tied hair bobbed in the wind. Edward reached for it and cupped both hands around the dark waves, lifting it from her neck to help cool her, a gesture he had done a million times for someone else.

But he dipped his head and kissed the nape of her neck, something he had not done before. "We shall try to live up to you," he teased.

"The breeze feels good," she murmured. "I've been hiding inside so long, I'd almost forgotten. Is it like this in the country?"

"Yes. It's different there." After a brief pause: "I'm different there."

"Oh?" Anne smiled; he saw the rise of her cheek. They had been married less than a year and had spent almost no time alone together – and certainly, never a country holiday. "You enjoy it?"

He brought his hands to cup her shoulders, thinking of how easily he could find his way to Lissie's bedroom in their country house. Remembering the way she'd spread his fingers to kiss his palm. _Do you love Anne? I am glad for you._ How he had turned his head at the very last moment, her lips catching only the corner of his mouth, and the collective, unspoken relief they'd shared every time this had happened in the past. "Generally," he managed.

"We should go there, then. Together?" She twisted in his grip. "After this is over?"

"Jane's queenship?" he teased. Anne pouted and he snaked his arms around her middle, resting his head over her shoulder. "Yes, yes we should. We will."

"If you can be parted from your sister."

Edward paused. But she was teasing. And she meant Jane. "I'm sure she'll bear with it."

"Yes," Anne murmured, "although things will change."

He thought of how Lissie had turned over in his arms, fast asleep, just a few nights ago. How she'd nestled against him, sharing his pillow. Her breath had tickled his neck.

Edward kissed his wife's cheek.

"Yes," he agreed. "But not so much, my love."

She turned her head and kissed his mouth. "No?"

"No. We shall see to it. And my sister - won't change. We'll take pains thus."

"If you say it, I believe it so." The breeze died and Anne Stanhope lifted the large hat and fanned them both with it. She closed her eyes and savoured the waves of cool air, blissfully ignorant that she spoke of one thing while her husband referred entirely to another.

**UP NEXT:**

He had expected she would look even thinner due to anxiety, but Cromwell was surprised to see a slightly less gaunt Anne enter the hall. He hid a smile at the sight of her headwear: a black cap, perched on her head like a flattened hood, with a long black feather that bobbed and fluttered with each movement. Anne's hair was pulled entirely off her neck and shoulders, probably coiffed into some intricate knot, and hidden beneath. Her face was clear, soft, and more relaxed than his own. He traced her features, looking for a hint of malice or challenge there, and found none; only earnestness. He readjusted in his seat. This was not the most comfortable situation.

Anne's movements were familiar, the almost oblique posture, the self-contained inclination of the chin. Her figure was drawn into a black gown – rather tightly, it appeared – that split in the middle to reveal a gleaming red underskirt. From the waist up, Anne looked every inch a paradigm of fashion; from the waist down, she was a martyr.

Having reached the base of the platform they had erected for her – higher than those on which the men had been tried, which Cromwell himself thought absurd – she paused. With a quick glance around and a breath slightly deeper than usual, the only action to belie any anxiety, Anne reached for her skirts.

Then she found him, flicking her eyes directly to his. There was no searching, no wide gaze: she'd known where he would be. It was then that he saw challenge. Just as easily, she looked away. She picked up her skirts in both hands, holding them just above her ankles so she could mount the shallow steps without tripping, and he saw why she had looked at him so. Why she had essentially smirked at him with her eyes.

**Hope you enjoyed! I appreciate and adore those who leave me feedback! =)**


	32. Chapter 32

**A/N: Hi everyone! I wish I had been able to update sooner and I apologize about the brevity of this chapter - life has been wonderful and hectic lately! I attended the writing conference at Yale University again this summer and had a fantastic time - now brimming with ideas and excited to pick up with this story. I hope you all are excited too!**

**HALove, thanks so much for your review and your kind words! I can't tell you how great that is to hear. I especially appreciate that you noted my writing reads like a novel - I'm working on a historical fiction novel and other than this story I've had no creative writing experience, so I'm constantly second-guessing my choices in writing. I do love my characters and am thankful that I've been able to spend years (literally 3.5 years) writing this story and developing them. At this point I'm debating taking a one-day intensive character development writing workshop to sharpen this skill even further as I really feel that the depth of the characters is the reason my readers are connecting to this story. So that feedback was very helpful. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the coming chapters as well!**

**Hi Amaranthe, and welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed reading my story up til this point and I hope to hear from you again on what worked for you and what didn't! Thank you for your time and energy in reviewing :)**

**Oh, Rae, you poor dear. I'm glad you made it through the end of the year and can relax a bit during the summer. And do let me know if you're reading me at work this time! No, I'm not a fan of snakes either, but somehow that image came to me and I was like, why not try something different? As for the idea of incest in The Borgias, YES. It's all very good. The actors who play the Borgia siblings have, hands down, the best on-screen chemistry of any two people I've ever seen. I highly recommend you watch some fan videos of the series to get a feel if you haven't already (I will recommend some of my faves!). It's strange because the hinting in my story actually didn't come out of watching that series (which I only saw recently), but it coincides far too well with the relationship there. I'm not sure where the Edward/Lissie angle originated in my mind but I'm honestly really into it. I hope it comes through in my writing that the relationship goes far, far beyond physical tension. I'm working on developing that dynamic too and having fun creating depth and history for them, so please keep an eye out for that in coming chapters and perhaps you can suggest where I can make improvements!**

**Hope everyone enjoys :) As always, reviews are infinitely appreciated.**

**PS this is my first attempt at posting from my new tablet so please forgive any formatting errors.**

i.

9 May

Morning

Anne's eyelashes felt thick and heavy, weighing her lids and encouraging her to sleep. Seducing her to sleep was more like it. She found she couldn't keep her eyes open; her body ached and she lacked the strength to haul herself upright, much less disengage herself from her bedsheets.  
The sun was rising higher in the sky, and she had slept soundly through the night, exhaustion overcoming her. Her sleep had been full of dreams, she thought. She was certain she had dreamt many times. She tried to remember whether they had been sweet fantasies or jarring nightmares, but even thinking seemed an exertion that was beyond her. She could not remember them.

Her maids no doubt wanted to hasten her out of bed and dress her, but Anne suddenly couldn't bring herself to care what anyone else wanted. She couldn't spare the energy to care. She couldn't even flop over on her bed, instead rolling slowly, reaching for a pillow with painstaking sluggishness, her head collapsing onto it at the soonest possible moment. The creases of her eyes teemed with crusted-over dried tears, the way they often did when she slept exceptionally soundly, and she rubbed only a few of them away.  
"I'm not hungry," she told the mild-mannered girl who approached her bed with a tray of food. "I can't eat."  
"Your Majesty must try to nourish yourself," the maid said tentatively. Her voice was so soft that Anne had to strain to hear.  
"Leave the tray, then." Anne gestured at a table near her bed. "I have no appetite at the moment."  
The girl deposited the queen's breakfast and looked over, wringing her hands in concern. "Is Your Majesty feeling ill?"  
Anne flattened her palm against her own forehead. "No fever. Just not hungry. Nothing more," she lied, barely able to form the words. Her jaw was tired. Her tongue was tired.

Perhaps the maid said something before she slipped from the room; Anne was not sure. She sank into the mattress, every muscle and bone slackening, feeling as though she couldn't ease herself enough. In a vague corner of her mind she noted that her stomach rumbled. She was hungry indeed. She'd spent an hour before dawn retching into a basin. And now she couldn't will her body to move. Food of ill quality, Nan had suggested. If only.

ii.

"She won't move," the maid insisted when Kingston gave her a skeptical look.

"Is she obstinate?"

The girl shook her head. "No, sir. She barely speaks. She claims fatigue and says she needs to rest for the day."

"Has she risen at all?"

"Not to my knowledge - although, perhaps before we rose. But she has taken no food either. I would not want anyone to think her neglected... she simply won't take it."

The gaoler exhaled, cheeks puffing out to a degree that showed his agitation. "She's ill. She must be ill. This isn't like her."

"She says she isn't feverish."

"She can be ill without a fever," Kingston replied. "She must be. I will speak with Master Secretary."

iii.

Afternoon

"What's the queen? 'It's the queen' what?" Richard Riche hovered over Kingston as the two men walked side by side.

Kingston glanced sideways. "I think she's ill."

"You think?"

"She won't get out of bed and she's claiming exhaustion."

Riche paused. "Perhaps feigning to get out of..." Of what? She seemed as eager to get on with it as any of them.

Kingston just shook his head gravely. "No. There's no pageantry. Her Majesty has been clear, vocal, since she arrived. Today she's silent, save for when she insists she's fine, just fatigued."

"Has she undertaken some exertions?" Riche glanced nervously around the secretary's office as they entered.

"Unless the guards are letting her out at night," the gaoler faltered when he realized he should not have said that, "no."

Cromwell's face remained blank, but his eyes darted up while Kingston spoke. He glanced at Riche, then back at Kingston. He licked his lips, parted them, cleared his throat. "When did this begin?"

"This morning, my lord. Her maid told me before midday."

"And she's languished all this time? Have you been in to see her?"

"Yes, sir." Kingston clasped his hands in front of his chest in thought. "I visited just before I came here. She appeared in a deep slumber, but roused when I addressed her. She smiled and was courteous but wan. She insisted she is not ill - just tired and needs to rest."

"How..." Cromwell paused, and had the other two men been any nearer they might have heard the sharp breath he drew. He sought the right words for the question he wanted to ask. "How did she look?"

Kingston was silent for a few moments. "She did not look feverish or ill, my lord. She indeed looked exhausted. Dark circles beneath her eyes, when she obliged me and opened them."

"How were her eyes? Did they appear clouded?" The secretary concealed his interest and concern just barely.

"No, my lord, they did seem clear. Bright blue as always, but she beheld me clearly and there was no confusion in her gaze."

"And her skin?" Cromwell thought he managed not to sound too strangled. "Was it... waxy? Flushed?" He wanted to ask if it looked warm and dewy, the symptoms of a fever or sweating sickness coinciding uncomfortably with how arousal might look upon the queen's body.

"I did notice that there seemed to be a dampness about her hairline - but very slight. No overall sweating. I spied no sweat on her skin."

Funny, Cromwell thought. He felt sure he could taste her sweat on his tongue. He swallowed a mouthful of wine to vanquish the imaginary salt. "And she maintained that she's of sound health?"

"Indeed. She hasn't eaten, but says she is simply not hungry."

The secretary gave a noncommittal "mmm." There was a full minute of silence as he appeared to mull over this new information, when in reality he was illustrating for himself a drawing of Anne in his mind's eye: no doubt sparsely dressed, poured over pillows and blankets, the slightest glow of moisture adorning her face. Eyes heavy, smile slow, hair an unplaited cloud, legs tangled in bedsheets. Laid abed for the eyes of her maid and gaoler only. Clearly Cromwell was in the wrong profession. He traced over her body, top to bottom, imagining what could have befallen her. He rolled her onto her other side and went over her again. Logically, he knew that she had had every care and comfort that could have been provided by man. Her food and lodgings were of royal quality; her company, if not her choice, was unobtrusive - he had seen to that.

Riche interrupted: "Should we send a physician?"

"Not yet," came his answer, without his permission. "Not yet - we'll see how she does. She may just be depleted emotionally. She may want to retreat to the closest place of safety that she can access." He looked at Kingston. "Keep a close watch and especially have a care for her body temperature. If she begins complaining of being too hot or too cold, or if she becomes feverish or incoherent, summon a physician and call me immediately."

"You don't think we should have her examined, anyway, just in case?" Kingston shifted his weight back and forth. "I would not have any accusations of mistreatment or substandard care..."

"No one would think to make any. You can trust in me. It is my decision, my orders that you follow - the blame would fall thusly."

Kingston nodded. "Yes, my lord." He turned to go. "D'you care to send any other instructions or documents back to the Tower? Since I'm here anyway."

Cromwell glanced around, finding the short stack of memorandums he'd meant to send upriver later today. "You can take these, if you would be so kind."

The gaoler came back and tucked the bundle under his arm. "Indeed."

"And tell her..." Cromwell stopped, placing his fingertips together, five points of connection. "Tell the queen. That if she requires something for her further comfort, she need only ask."

Kingston barely disguised his surprise. "Is there something you think she might need that I could gather now?"

Cromwell shuffled through the possibilities in mind: Nan Saville. Her daughter. A kind embrace and soft word. A man in black who would climb over her as she lay nestled in bed, covering her with his body and kissing away the sweat at her hairline. Who would demand nothing of her, but might press his lips to hers in an attempt to rouse her. Arouse her. "I..." He held up his hands to Kingston; not guilty. "I've no knowledge of what Her Majesty might want. You would have to ask her."

"Yes, my lord." Kingston departed with the papers cradled in his arm like a child.

iv.

"I don't need anything," Anne murmured, the words more a hum than a statement. "I'm just resting."

"Your Majesty seems to be out of sorts." Kingston pressed gently, not wanting to irritate or alarm her.

"Tired. Not ill."

"Does your stomach trouble? Are you having difficulty moving?" He hovered over her bedside, peeking at her face, her hands, her posture.

Anne's eyes opened with effort. "No. Just preferring to rest. I've had no symptoms of illness."

To her credit, one of Anne's quiet maids bobbed forward. "Sir, we will keep a careful vigil over Her Majesty until she sees fit to rise from her bed."

He looked back and forth, forearms crossed. He thought what Cromwell would do to him if the queen were to expire under his charge. He had almost mentioned the irony - the secretary so concerned with keeping her guarded and in good health so he could move forward with summarily dispatching her - but the tense darkness in Cromwell's face had stayed his mouth. He tried to look at the queen's girl with the same gravity, bidding the exhausted woman farewell and drawing the young lady along with him as he exited the bedchamber. "Indeed - someone must be conscious and with her through the night. Take shifts keeping vigil just outside her door. And for God's sake, see what you can do about getting some food into her."

If the charge intimidated her, which it most certainly must have, the girl did not show it. She nodded in acknowledgement, turning to her fellow ladies, this makeshift crew of a hostage court for the queen that was doomed; they barely knew each other, and none of them knew the queen. But Master Secretary had bid them all into his office, to stand before his desk. _Take care of her_, he had said. _She'll be... _how had he phrased it?... _writhing in agony over the certainty of her guilt. Her treasonous and abominable actions which I will not detail to you, having a care for the purity of your minds. But nonetheless. Guilt consuming her, she will be fierce and elusive as a wasp, as a serpent. She'll speak and act out of turn, and you must remember everything, in case it be needed later - but take care of her. Be kind to her._ And she, at least, had wondered why he'd said so.

She wondered what he would have to say if he saw her thus, soft-spoken and motionless. If she resembled any wasp or snake now, it would be a dying one. She wondered if Cromwell saw the irony there. Somehow she knew that it was not something she'd have to report to him.

v.

Tom's grin was wide and bright enough to read by, Lissie thought. He paced and preened like a prize peacock. One would think the gesture had been intended for him, from his royal lover, the way he behaved. How irritating, she thought, that men were entitled always to celebrate through the triumphs of women; but any hardship borne by a woman also became her burden, to be blamed rather than shared by men.

Jane, for her part, sank to her knees on the carpet. She was wearing plain cotton again, in slate blue, a far cry from the fabrics and styles the king liked. This simplicity became Jane better, Lissie thought, than any of those fine things. But Jane would not have dressed so had she known that a small retinue from the king would arrive today. The blonde's hair was unbound save for a ribbon tying the sides together at the nape of her neck. The sisters had accidentally matched, with Lissie wearing dove gray. Jane clasped her hands before the prize, looking eerily like a woman at prayer before the altar. "Elizabeth, come," she bubbled.

_I am not a dog_, Lissie replied silently. But she plucked herself out of her chair and joined her siblings in the middle of the floor, where Jane was about to open the carved chest that had just arrived from the king. The pages who had carried it in stood discreetly in the doorway.

Jane's cheeks dimpled as she freed the latch and cracked the chest open, lifting the lid with agonizing slowness. "Oh," Jane breathed. One hand came to cover her mouth. "Oh, my Lord."

In spite of herself, Lissie strained forward. Her breath caught too. Only the top layer of the chest's contents was visible, but it was dazzling: flat velvet boxes in different shades with mother-of-pearl clasps, each one holding a piece of beautifully wrought jewelry. Brooches, a rainbow of rings, two stunning necklaces, and a solid gold rosary. Underneath the rosary, nestled also into its bed of velvet, was a small folded square of parchment. Jane slid it free and unfolded it carefully.

"For your pious virtue," it said in beautiful script. Which Elizabeth was fairly sure was not the king's handwriting.

"God's grace," Tom uttered, making the phrase sound like a curse somehow. He stood beside his kneeling sisters with his feet planted shoulder-width apart. His hands were behind his back, like a master taking stock of his belongings. His eyes widened. Elizabeth could almost see him tallying the value of the gifts. Her eyes found the greed in his face; he was not so good at hiding his thoughts. She would have to remember to speak to Edward about it.

Jane's face and chest were flushed. "He's so kind," she whispered. Lissie watched her sister's joy from one corner of her eye. She felt her sister sliding into worshipful love for her soon-to-be husband, and truly, she pitied her. To find promise of security and love in a chest of jewels was to Lissie the mark of a gullible woman. Yes; the gifts were thoughtful and extravagant; yes; he had respected her virtue throughout their courtship. But he lavished gifts upon her while his current wife sat abandoned in prison, awaiting a humiliating public trial and almost certainly an execution.

None of this mattered to Jane. For the first time, or at least for the first time clearly and tangibly, she saw her path to the throne before her. This was no longer courtly talk and adoration and hope. These were gifts meant for a queen. This was Henry's way of communicating their future to her.

Below the jewelry were layers of sleeves, cloth-of-gold and glittering white damask. A beautiful silk robe, embroidered all over with new buds the symbolism was not lost on any of the siblings. And furs. Sable and mink. At the very bottom, beneath all else, a single set of stockings, daringly striped up and down in two soft shades of fawn. As quiet and unassuming as striped French stockings could be, with seed pearls at the top where the ribbons cinched on the upper thigh.

Finally, one more note that the siblings found, after sighing and caressing each gift. A note in that same beautiful handwriting, that one would like to think had come from the hand of a king: "And a lifetime more, my love."

vi.

Evening

Late that night, Cromwell huddled over yet another mug of cider and wrote out lists of questions for Kingston to answer and return. Anne had not improved. His heart was pounding, his mind racing as he tried to imagine what could be the trouble. None of her ladies were ill. None of the guards were ill. She couldn't have contracted an infection from anything. Her food was of proper quality and quantity, but of course she had not been eating enough. Was there a draft in the royal apartments? Were the chimneys clean and functional? Had her bed linens been changed and cleaned often enough?

The cinnamon smell was so alluring that he put down his quill for a moment. Cinnamon made him think of the colder months, autumn fading into winter, brisk night winds and burrowing in bed with... with. He stopped the thought and took a breath.

What of her food? Had it been taste-tested? Consistently? Had anyone been keeping an eye on the cooks and pages of the Tower to see that their integrity had not been compromised? Had anyone watched how they behaved while interacting with her? Had anyone been vigilant to detect malice? The possibilities were endless. The sheer mathematics were overwhelming. Anxiety was mixing with frustration to create a nervous sort of anger. Had no one else been sure to see to her safety? Did he have to handle everything?

Although he knew it wasn't an accurate picture, Cromwell's mind was inventing an image of Anne that was wholly unsettling: skin gray and empty, purple veins glowing through, trying to fight off whatever malady was claiming her. Sweat covering her skin to no use. Intestines filled with parasites, arteries choking on poison.

On a new sheet, he began a list of questions slightly more intimate: were the shadows beneath her eyes gray or dark purple? And the whites of her eyes - gripped by red vines? Were there bruises on her limbs? Were her outermost extremities - hands, fingertips, feet, toes - cold to the touch, warm, or neither? Were her fingernails tinged an unusual hue, perhaps blue or white? What of her lips - swollen, cracked, discoloured? Was her belly distended? Did she claim pain on her left side? Were her knees engorged?

The fingers of his imagination trailed over Anne's naked body, which, despite claiming her carnally twice, he had never even come close to seeing. His knuckles tested her skin, her joints, the organs of her midsection. The back of his hand sought her temperature, pressing against various parts of her body, which in his mind was not a sensual temptation but an exhibit of science. Methodical and thorough, as though he had studied medicine rather than law. The mental manifestation of his tongue stole its way up her neck, tasting her sweat to see if it was salty or sweet or vile, because it would make a difference. Waiting to see whether her sleeping mouth would groan or whimper at the sensation. Pinching spot after spot, descending her arm: did her fingers curl against her palm, demonstrating proper reflexive movement?

The list was exhaustive and exhausting, and finally he put it down. There was no more that he could ask of Kingston yet. If Anne did not mend tomorrow, he, Cromwell, would take a barge up the river by moonlight to attend on her. He'd bring physicians - at least two, but probably more. And he'd stand by while they examined her. He would not let them bleed her. He would not let them use those absurd remedies with searing coal to force out any ill humours. He would stand back, to be sure; he would not interfere. But he would not allow any barbaric treatment.

For a brief, delicious moment, he allowed himself the fantasy that she'd find his eyes in the room, her tired sapphires wide and afraid. That she'd seek out his gaze, his connection, for comfort. That he'd cross the room to where she lay on the bed, not only a prisoner but also a patient now, and kneel opposite her, reaching for her hand. That she might whimper, her fingers tensing slightly around his, just slightly, and he'd see her other hand bunch into the linens beneath her body. That he would whisper, "It's all right. Anne."

vii.

10 May

Late morning

It was a simple pretext, really, and far too convenient. The time had come for his second interview with George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, who if Kingston was to be believed had gathered himself somewhat in his erstwhile imprisonment. He sensed that this "gathering" was not the type that would lend itself to a coerced confession, but no matter. No matter. All would right itself in the end, whether the end was in an interrogation cell or an open hall before a jury of lords. The convictions would rain down on them all, quenching them like thirsty wildflowers at this time of year. Damned wildflowers, but wildflowers the same.

Yet he found himself upriver a full hour sooner than he needed to be, and he found himself bypassing the corridor to Kingston's office to head directly for the apartments of one such wildflower, the queen of the wildflowers as it were. The guards moved aside and nodded deferentially toward him. Cromwell knocked on the door to the outer chamber and a maid - one of the three he had selected - stole out. "Master Cromwell."

"How does the queen?"

"She's better today, still abed but more talkative and alert. She's just been eating."

He would never, he promised himself a moment later, never admit to anyone the rush of relief and joy that overtook his heart at this admission. She was on the mend. She was safe. "Excellent," he managed when he found his voice. "Excellent news indeed. Has she asked for anything or complained of any symptoms?"

"No, sir. She remains quiet, but not unresponsive like yesterday. Would you like to...?" The girl stepped away, peeling herself from the open door, offering him entrance.

Anne was just in the next room, he knew. She would probably be propped up on pillows, hair still loose, white skin on white nightgown on white sheets. Either shivering and wrapped in blankets or dewy with warm sweat, feet bare to the ankles crossed on top of the coverings. He didn't trust himself in that room, in any room, with her thus. But he faltered. Just to rake his eyes over her form, to be sure she wasn't fading and this young lady wasn't wrong, to make sure that if she was to leave this world, it would be by his machinations and his only... "No. Thank you. I'm glad to hear she improves. Good day."

"My lord." The girl bobbed in respect and closed the door softly on his retreating back.

A room with George, though, was a room where he could trust himself. He could even enjoy himself. Truly, this was like a holiday from his desk, he thought as he took the seat across from Rochford. The lord's shirt had been washed and starched somehow; apparently status meant something even here.

"I'm not going to confess," George said plainly, as though saying, isn't it obvious?

"I know," Cromwell replied just as blandly - as though saying, I'm not a fool.

"And yet here we sit."

A smile curled the secretary's lips. "Indeed. What would you like to discuss?"

"I've nothing to say to you." George seemed to think that his glare was piercing, but it just looked to Cromwell like he needed to have his eyes examined.

"No? You spoke at our last interview of your eagerness to accuse your sister of the debauchery of which you deny your own guilt; with the other guilty men lodged here."

"Lodged." George snorted. "A generous choice of words. And guilty - an ungenerous choice."

Cromwell didn't bother to stifle the mid-afternoon yawn that overcame him. "Words, words. Words and deeds. How difficult to draw the line."

Rochford paused, not sure what this meant but not wanting to show it. "How so?"

"Between words of the present and deeds of the past. If one says the words over and again, eventually they can become true. Because eventually, truth becomes blurred with fantasy, and no more can you draw the line between them than you can between words and deeds."

George blinked. "God can tell the difference."

The secretary allowed himself a small smile. "God can, indeed, my lord. But God also has the luxury of seeing the greater picture: the ultimate scheme, the grand stratagem. God accompanies us throughout the journey, as only we ourselves do on earth. God understands not only each of us, but the ultimate course of things."

"So you think you are exempt from the sin of false conviction?"

"I? Never. I won't be the one convicting, my lord."

"Ah. And you excuse yourself thus."

Cromwell chuckled. "I needn't excuse myself at all. Everything I do, I submit to the Lord for His judgment."

"You mean the king," George muttered.

"You would impugn His Majesty's alignment with the almighty?"

Rochford paused: this was dangerous. The man must have accepted by now that he was doomed. All that he could hope for was a merciful dispatch. "I would not."

A fan of fine lines appeared around Cromwell's eyes, though no smile registered. "I thought as much. So - since you've got no ideas for conversation, perhaps we could discuss your wife."

"What about her?"

"How would you grade your relationship?"

George snorted. "I don't think you need me to tell you."

"Would it surprise you to know that she has accused you of sexual misconduct?"

"No."

"Would it surprise you to know that she begs for your release?"

"Nothing she could do could surprise me. She's not entirely well, my dear wife."

The secretary let his gaze roam the room. "Not unlike your sister, who has shown signs of emotional instability."

"Here?" George's tone was bland.

"Both in the Tower and before her arrest."

A slight lifting of one shoulder only. "My sister has been driven to distraction. She saw her position crumbling beneath her. Long ago. Before any of this."

"And do you pity her?"

"Pity her?" George seemed to be curious to know the answer himself. Cromwell watched the man quickly weigh his responses: _no, I don't pity her, for she's done this to herself through her base carnal activities; yes, I pity her, my sister, the victim of her circumstances. _He couldn't seem to decide which way to jump.

"Her circumstances. Here, in the Tower. Her emotional pain. Her fear."

Rochford met his eyes. "She's my sister and I would be a madman not to sympathize with her plight. But I cannot say that I have pity for her when she drags down so many men with her, including myself."

Ah. There. "She drags down innocents, you say?"

George blinked. "I didn't say that."

"But before..." Cromwell mused as though trying to recall. "You suggested that the men lodged in the Tower were not guilty. Just minutes ago. And the last time we spoke, you insisted that you were innocent while the others arrested had most certainly liaised, if you will, with your sister the queen. Which is it?"

"I cannot claim constant knowledge of my sister's behaviour..."

"Constant knowledge is not needed. Selective knowledge will do."

"I cannot verify her sexual activities, nor can I refute them."

Cromwell pressed his lips together. "And the accusations before?"

"My beliefs."

"Your attempt at saving yourself, by betraying the reputation of your blood."

George lifted his chin ever so slightly, not defiant but certainly not cooperative. "My attempt at assisting the king on this most delicate matter."

"His Majesty has all the help he needs, my lord, trust me."

Now Rochford smiled. "All from the able hands of Master Secretary Cromwell."

"He finds my handiwork useful, yes."

There was a venom in George's stare that bore open before Cromwell's eyes, truly for the first time, the resemblance between George and Anne. Rochford cleared his throat. "Does he believe everything you tell him, Cromwell?"

"I don't tell him. He asks, I produce information."

"And he trusts it all? I would not think him so unsuspecting. To entrust his most sensitive tasks to one man."

"Perhaps he entrusts such tasks only to those in whom he has profound faith."

"Obviously ranking you at the top of such a list."

Cromwell raised his eyebrows. This interview was rendered completely unnecessary, a waste of tongue activity. Rochford had not buckled; he hadn't wisened, but he hadn't buckled. And it did not matter, it did not complicate matters, but the opposite outcome would have simplified them. If George wanted to be a fool, he was entitled to be. Cromwell had hoped for better but not counted upon it. And now he had other tasks to address. "Would you mind making your point, my lord Rochford?"

"I simply wonder. What should happen if you make a mistake? His Majesty having placed the deepest trust with you, your worth would be deeply compromised. Perhaps irrevocably damaged. Perhaps ruined, like that of the late cardinal - yet the king is much less patient now, and so there may not be any second chances for his successor. But I'm sure you are aware of that."

The secretary and the lord stared at one another, each expressionless. "Indeed. I see the difficulty of my position. The peril of my post. Yet - take this to heart or don't - the king is aware of human weakness. He's sensitive to mistakes, and keeps careful stock even of his own, his present marriage counting among the gravest of those. Thus I would have to err in a colossal way. An incomprehensible way."

"For example - sending an innocent queen and half dozen men, equally innocent, to their deaths on falsified evidence?"

"But there lies your error." Cromwell pushed his chair back gently and stood. "For kings, the definition of a mistake is different than for the rest of us. We think only of ourselves, our happiness, our righteousness. His Majesty considers not himself but the prosperity and well-being of his realm. His standards regard mistakes and success differently than ours do; and those who serve him must have that same understanding."

"And what end does our elimination serve?"

Cromwell maneuvered around his chair and pushed it in while he spoke. "The preservation of the king's honour, integrity, and well-being. Which is of the utmost importance - you understand - as the manifestation of his realm."

George glared up at him. "Master Cromwell, I believe you've just contradicted yourself."

"Did I?" Cromwell adjusted his collar and shook out his sleeves as he left the room.

viii.

Afternoon

Mary Boleyn's teary brown eyes glittered up at her husband. "D'you think I should try?"

She watched Will searching for the right words. He parted his lips and then closed them again, not wanting to say the wrong thing. "I am not sure, my love."

"Why?" The question was genuine. Her tone was weak: _help_ _me_.

"Well…" Will folded the clean rag he had been using to wipe off the long tables of their kitchen. He cleared his throat. "Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, I think it would make no difference what you said or did. I cannot see how your interference would help matters. If anything, your aligning yourself with your family at this point could put you in harm's way."

Mary looked out the window. "I've had no meddle with them for above two years."

"Even still. Your siblings are assuredly innocent; your father has now been arrested too. The brand of your surname could burn you yet."

"But aren't they my family?" Her voice was soft. She wiped one of her eyes with a fingertip, daintily, reminding her husband that Mary had spent her youth on the arms and in the beds of kings.

He caught her hand on its way back to the table. He ran the pad of one of his fingers over her less than perfect, but still fastidiously maintained, fingernail. He waited until she looked him in the eye. "Are they?"

"They share my blood."

"And little else," he pointed out as gently as possible. "They've never even met our children. Your sister-"

"She's about to die…"

"She sent you away for marrying the man you love." The edge was difficult to keep from his voice. He intended no malice toward the queen, his sister-in-law, and indeed he understood her position in theory. But to speak to and treat Mary the way she had, simply for following a different path – and after having been neglected and regarded as a liability by her family – was in William's eyes unforgivable. "At the peak of the eleventh hour, all our scruples and angers and past demons seem to reverberate through our souls. They grip us and taunt us. But this is not your eleventh hour; and you owe nothing to these people who were your kin."

Mary regarded him for a long moment before she turned to look out the window. "'Kin.' I wonder at the meaning of that word."

"I hope not too much," William teased, easing back. He placed his palms on either side of his hips and hoisted himself onto the table, leaning against the window through which his wife was gazing. "I am your kin now, am I not?"

"You are my whole world." The statement came swiftly and with a conviction that surprised William. It was not the first time she had told him this, and of course the feeling was shared. "You and the children. You are the only reason I am on this earth."

He grinned. "Not the cheesecloths? Not the lambs in spring? Not the-"

"But they're still my blood," Mary whispered.

A long silence settled between them. Mary was still, leaning against the protruding wall of their kitchen, hand resting at the place where the edge of the table met the corner of the window. Will toyed with the fraying edge of the rag. He rolled his finger over the seam, feeling the fabric curl over and gather into a coil. In all this time, they had never heard a word from any member of the Boleyn family – not from Anne, not from George, certainly not from the earl. Most devastatingly, a letter from Mary to her mother had gone unanswered. He had held her in his arms as she wept on dozens of occasions, unable to understand how her lifelong companions could shut her out so completely.

Of course, he had learnt to ignore the feelings of guilt at having been the person to cause her this pain. Had she not loved him, had he never taken her in his arms and shown her what worship meant, and selfishly claimed her for his one true love at the start, she might have avoided all this. She might be married, maybe even content, in a big lonely house with a husband that might care for her, and children that would fill her life. Her sister might be kind to her, and her father might speak to her; Master Secretary Cromwell would not have had to fight for her inheritance and her legal rights on her behalf. Mary might have been taken care of. She might have been happy.

But, would she ever have known true joy? True bliss? Would she ever have shaken, covered in gooseflesh, in the arms of her politically mandated husband, overcome with a flood of wordless love? Would they have ever become one, finding ecstasy together between a set of worn-and-mended sheets in a wooden-floored bedroom tucked in green hills, with nary a courtier within half a day's ride? Would she have looked at the children she bore and exclaimed that they were the perfect embodiment of a love that she could never have dreamt to exist? Was it reasonable to think that on a mild, sunny day, she and her husband might have looked up and found one another's eyes purely by coincidence, purely by connection of the soul, from across a freshly planted field as they both went about their morning chores?

And the answers to those questions, in his mind, were what had kept Will Stafford certain that he should not be guilty. For the greatest joy in his life was Mary, and he knew without her speaking it – which she did anyway – that the same was true for her. She was right, and her family was her blood, and he could not deny that.

He realized that Mary had not been entirely still. She had been picking at the skin at the base of her fingernail, which she carefully maintained with salves sent as gifts from the secretary twice per year. Now she squeaked a little and tore her eyes from the scene before the window, looking down to see that she had picked too far and torn the skin. She wrinkled her nose and made a little hissing sound, looking around for something to clean it.

In a moment, William was down from the table and seizing her wrist in his hand. He reached for the small blade he kept at his belt and unsheathed it as Mary squirmed a little in his grip, not because she didn't trust him but because the button of blood was about to spill over her knuckle. But she froze when he pressed the tip of the knife against his own flesh, same finger as her wound, and a twin bead of red liquid emerged.

Her smile was unsure and ironic. "What are you…?"

Will silenced her with a look and guided her hand toward his, the two wounds coming into contact. Blood, although only a drop, stained the backs of both hands. Her wide-set eyes found his again, only a trace of the unshed tears left now.

He pressed her back against the wall, clasping their hands and dropping the knife on the table. He kissed her long and deep, but with a softness of adoration rather than the urgency of lust. "You are my entire world," he whispered against her lips. "You are my reason for living. And now I hope that you feel I am your blood too."

All at once, she began crying. "My love…" Her fingers gripped his tighter. "You would intervene for me, would you not?"

"I would throw myself into hellfire for you, and for any one of the children." Mary did not have to ask whether he included her two children from before their marriage in this statement. The only thing to question at this juncture was how on earth she had found a man this wonderful.

"And I as well," she vowed, a murmur. "I as well." Will was kissing her earlobe, finding his way down her now-bronzed neck, when Mary shook her head a little. "I don't think they'd lift a finger to save my life."

Neither of them needed him to agree out loud. Indeed, Mary might have been long dead for all they cared to know about her. "Then they are unworthy to share your blood."

"I love too much," she said softly.

"That's all right," he told her with a chuckle. "There are so many who love too little."

She folded herself against his chest, one arm of each enveloping the other, while their bloodied hands intertwined against the edge of the simple kitchen table of their quiet country home.

ix.

"Thought you'd never come," Thomas Wyatt said when the door to his room creaked. It wasn't a cell; one couldn't call it a cell. It was a room, and to be frank, it was more than he deserved. Far better than a man like he deserved.

Cromwell paused on the doorway, and the poet spun. "Never?" He questioned.

Wyatt grinned. "Well, I wasn't sure who was coming through the door, but yes, I hoped it would be you, Master Cromwell. What's taken you so long?"

The older man paused. He truly looked to be searching for an excuse. Finally he raised both palms, hands flattened. "Busy, my lord, just busy."

"'My lord'?" Wyatt repeated, grinning. His eyes were a bit wider than usual. His smile was a bit too ready. "Your lord? Come now. I'm a mere prisoner, arrested on charges of adultery with the queen. I'm not your lord."

Cromwell tapped one knuckle against the wooden door behind him, softly, signaling the guard that he could retreat. "You're arrested on suspicion, Master Wyatt. Talk and rumour only. Innuendo."

Wyatt snorted. He rose from the rickety table that had been shoved into one corner. "And you expect me to believe that any of the others have been arrested on something stronger than that?"

"Fair." The word was low and light. Neither man acknowledged it. "No evidence has been found against you. I see clearly your path to freedom."

That ironic turn of the mouth was quavering. It seemed that incarceration was breaking Wyatt, the opposite that it seemed to have done for the other men, although Cromwell thought that Wyatt had probably been half-broken for years now. The poet raked a hand through his wild blonde hair, which desperately needed washing and a comb. "Yet I'm the only one who's guilty."

"Oh?" The secretary fancied that he kept his voice steady and calm in spite of the vicelike iron fist that gripped his heart. Wyatt – guilty? Wyatt had had her? Wyatt, confessing to him, here, now? If so, he was a madman. He could be excused on such a pretense. The legality of it did not bother Cromwell. The idea that another man had shared Anne, another man had preoccupied her, another man had made her gasp and quiver under his touch, probably in a dark-paneled room or some forgotten corner, and that, perhaps, she thought of this man still, and had thought of him while – while…

"Guilty as sin," Wyatt enunciated. "Baser activity than one can imagine. Debauchery that would draw a blush to the cheek of Caligula."

"And when has this occurred, my lord?"Again, he forced himself not to quiver. When he closed his eyes he could still feel her lips on his, the rush of air when she gasped in surprise at the way he touched her. He could even feel a bit of trust – ironic and ill-disposed, of course – that he had ascertained in her grip on his shoulders, on his neck, at the end, in her closet. The way she had held onto him tightly. Those long lingering kisses in the dark: she had been present. She had kissed him back. She had kissed him too. He realized this, now, for the first time, with Thomas Wyatt staring back at him.

The younger man swayed a little as his feet took aimless steps, backward, and forward. Not real steps at all, but a shifting of weight. "All the time," Wyatt said, and the grip tightened for a moment. Then it subsided as Wyatt's face twitched in agitation. "Every moment. Right now."

"Now?" Cromwell managed as he exhaled deeply, his bruised heart weaker and weaker with each attack but surviving, again, free to live another day. "The queen is in this room, Master Wyatt?"

"Who mentioned a room? I don't need a room. My mind has ample space, perfect lighting, colourful detail… any scenario a man could want."

Cromwell chuckled a little. "Or a woman?"

"Perhaps," Wyatt gave a noncommittal shrug. "But the mind is mine, and it's the mind of a man; make no mistake."

"And you're having her right now?"

Wyatt smiled, a sad, nauseated smile. "Just before you came in. And I'm sure, to pick up after you've gone."

"Here in this room?"

A broad sweeping gesture with both hands. "This time at least."

"Well," Cromwell smirked, "I do hope you'll be quiet. No need to cause a stir."

Wyatt made a bit of a growl, low in his throat. "Oh, my lord. In my mind, she is never quiet. She moans beneath me. Or on top of me. Or in front of me –"

"Yes, my lord."

"And she never tires of me," Wyatt chuckled. "God knows she never tires of me, and she's always begging for me, for my touch, for my love. She's always making me swear to love and honour her for all of both our days and beyond. And just when she's secured all those vows from me, she's ready to begin that delicious moaning of my name again. No rest, in my mind, Cromwell. I tell you, no rest."

"That must be tiring."

"If only," Wyatt boomed as he spun back around, finding his chair and pushing it behind the desk. "If only that was the only tiring activity. If only I wasn't always dreaming, and thinking, and composing, and revising, and then remembering – oh, yes, that's right. It's all in vain. It's all a cloud, a sweet warm cloud that envelops me in its haze and then moves on and I'm cold and alone and damp with sweat, and just as soon as I'm righting myself, along comes another cloud. Along always another cloud."

The poet was not talking to the secretary. The poet was not talking to anyone.

What would the king say if he knew, if he knew that Thomas Wyatt loved his wife so, and probably had every day for the past fifteen years? She'd been back from France fifteen years, so it would be nearly that. Cromwell took in the room about him: somehow Wyatt had managed to make a mess in spite of having only a handful of items in his possession. The man himself was the very picture of disorder. One shoulder was almost entirely exposed, the entire pectoral muscle on display because Wyatt couldn't be bothered to tighten and tie the collar on his shirt. The shirt collar and cuffs were unadorned. No loving wife or mistress to embroider true lovers' knots or small symbols of their family crest there. One sleeve was frayed as though Wyatt had been chewing on it. He hadn't been shaved, or bathed, of course. None of this seemed to phase the man.

In a moment of lucidity, Cromwell realized that this was how Wyatt had lived most of his life. Earthly cares, while never eschewed, played accent fiddle to the true motivation – the expression of his mind. His thoughts. Wyatt was a man ruled by his thoughts, the way some men are ruled by the clink of the coin or the summons of a saint. He lived for his thoughts. He would rise and sleep under the blanket of his fantasies for the rest of his days, no matter who tried to break him of them. Cromwell wondered whether the death of his muse would help or hurt him. Or whether her existence truly mattered. Was it the mere concept of her that drove her admirer? Did Wyatt love the woman, or the idea? Had he ever taken her to bed – if he did now, even – would he find her wanting? Find himself wanting?

The king, Cromwell decided, would probably not care about the depth of Wyatt's obsession. A man who had wordlessly, mindlessly, taken his wife's body once would suffer the cruelest of punishments. A man who had loved her chastely from afar, living out his fantasies, carnal, emotional, spiritual, uncounted times each day, was of no great consideration. Were Cromwell a more disinterested man, he might have let himself stop to consider the absurdity of this fact.

And what, Cromwell wondered, of a man who had surprised himself by taking her in his arms, swearing her off and vowing her ruin, and then slowly let himself be drawn unwillingly – though he could blame no one other than himself – toward her, his body and mind seeking her, rebelling against all the habits and regulations that had been the foundation upon which he had built his career and life? What of such a man? What of a man who had taken her in blind passion, and then again with the clarity of purpose and had desired more than anything to feel her wind her arms around him? What of a man who had lied in layers so deep to everyone around him that he himself could no longer discern the truth from the narrative, the word from the deed, the lust from the compassion or the hostility from the connection? What of a man who was hell bent on ruining the woman as quickly as possible, thinking to wash clean his own sin?

He thought of her day and night, Wyatt did. He conjured her body before him, her slender figure, narrow waist and graceful shoulders, her elegant neck and the sculpted bones of her face. Her wide, ever-deepening eyes. Cromwell's own eyes slid closed. Wyatt was not the only one who conjured her.

And what of a man who knew a woman intimately, and sent her to her death? Although Cromwell and Henry shared that blame equally.

Cromwell had been quiet a good while, and Wyatt was lost in his own thoughts. Uncomfortably, Cromwell realized that he would never again have to wonder at what was going on inside the poet's mind. Wyatt stared off into the air, eyes a bit glassy, and absently he adjusted his collar. It promptly fell back askance.

Neither man could remember what they had been discussing: Cromwell couldn't recall why he had come, and Wyatt couldn't recall that he had wanted to ask the same. The secretary wanted to say, if there is anything you need, my lord…

But didn't.

Instead, he paused as he turned to go and wheeled back around, one hand poised against the door, knuckles ready to rap on the wood. "Does she love you?"

Wyatt registered the question with the most mirthless of sniggers, not needing the secretary to clarify. He tore his eyes from their unfocused point in the air and looked at Cromwell. "She says so."

A pause. Cromwell's brow furrowed. "But does she, truly?"

"I don't know," Wyatt admitted quietly. He ran a hand over one side of his head. "I don't ask her."

**A/N: So, obviously the trial scene didn't make it into this chapter. I really don't know what I was thinking. It'll be few chapters down the line - why I thought I could fit all those days into one chapter is a mystery to me.**

**Anyway, UP NEXT:**

"They've called me a raven, a streaming black raven. And shall I join the ravens that take sanctuary here, nestling in the hidden corners and holes of this fortress?"

The maid glanced around her as if hoping to find someone else to whom the queen addressed the question. But Anne was looking at her, an unflinching, searching gaze. She found her voice. "No, madam."

"No? I shouldn't? Not to fly among those poor misunderstood creatures, thought to be evil but in fact just trying to live? D'you think I don't align with them in that way?" The queen toyed with the silk of her gown, loose flowing sleeves billowing about her restless hands.

"A bird is a bird, madam," the girl tried, hoping to avoid irritating her mistress.

But the queen nodded and looked away. "You are correct, my dear. A bird is a bird, and no more. But people are more - there is more, to people, to each of us. More than a raven."

The maid just nodded eagerly, showing that she concurred.

"And..." the queen seemed out of breath suddenly, and it became apparent that she was fighting tears. She placed both hands on her torso, an effort to control her breathing. When she had eased, she shook her head. "Always more."

"My lady, would you care for anything..."

"For what? What could improve things? What could change things?" Anne demanded, brow furrowed, face hard. "Everything has been taken from me. There's nothing else that can be stripped away. But I've got everything - too much. I've got too much," she babbled, then broke off. After several moments' silence she let out a peal of laughter, and delightedly brought both hands to her face.

The maid tried to shrink away in the room, toward the door to the outer chamber. "If Your Majesty should require anything for your comfort..."

But Anne had spun, turned away from her, and her silky gown flared about her as she rotated. She made her way to the bed and dropped over the tightly made coverings. "That which I wanted for so long. And so deeply. I wanted it all, and now I've got it all, and nothing. Nothing!" She almost yelped, twisting her neck to catch the maid's eye.

"Yes, madam." The maid backed through the threshold.

Alone again, Anne rested her head and giggled softly in the quiet. She sighed. "Wanted it, and begged for it, and at the Lord's behest, now I've got it. Now. Unholy," she whispered.

Ravens had such the reputation for being harbingers of evil, or at least of disruption. No one ever coddled or doted on a raven. No one loved a raven. Was it even possible for ravens to love? Most would probably deny.

Yet raven curls had found one another, and had come together. Raven wings had encircled. Raven beaks had jabbed at one another; and raven eyes had never stopped their watchful ways. So at least, they were capable of that.

Anne began humming to herself, a song about a bird from childhood, whose words lent themselves to adaptation. "Oh, the little raven, hop, hop, hop." With each 'hop' she tapped a different finger on her belly, gently, for she had been sick again this morning.

She had forgotten the rest of the words, so she started over again. "Oh, the little raven..." her voice quavered and died.

Ravens weren't evil, she thought. There was nothing evil or dark or bad about their souls, whatever their outward appearances. Whatever their reputations.

Yet any little raven would carry that burden, regardless of its innocence, struggling under the weight of the world's expectations and malignance.

So perhaps it was better this way, she told herself. It must be. Her palm flattened against her lower belly, ever so slightly swollen. She wanted to sing again, but she could not muster the cheer to even hum. She fluttered her fingertips three times: hop, hop, hop. The warmth of her hand was the only source of comfort she had.

Anne turned her head to the side and closed her eyes against the bright sunshine of the day. Hot tears spilled from her eyes, dripping over her nose and striping her face horizontally. She covered her face with her free hand. Into her palm, she whispered, "I'm sorry."


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N: Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone! Here's our next installment – not perfect, but I am pleased with it. =)**

**Now more than ever, I would appreciate your taking the time to review. I am battling some… I guess you could call it writer's block, but it's a bit more complicated than that… as we are nearing the end of the story, I think part of me doesn't want to let it end, but the other part is so excited to write the final chapters that I'm having trouble getting through the next few which are all that now lie between us and the (hopefully epic) conclusion. I have a plan to finish this story by my 25****th**** birthday which is next February, since I began writing it on my 21****st**** birthday. That's crazy to me. Four years! Therefore, any comments or feedback or even knock-knock jokes left in the comments section would be greatly appreciated and helpful in motivating and helping to inspire me to give this story the finale that I think it deserves.**

**I got to put a little Seymour family history into this chapter, as I've been researching the family more and more as I begin a new story (which hopefully I will have published someday? =D) about them and Jane's ascent to the throne. So I hope you enjoy!**

**Stardust Parade, I hope you enjoy this chapter as well, and many thanks for your time in reviewing!**

**Morganasmantle AKA Rae, are you back in school now? Did you watch The Borgias this summer? It's really a fantastic series and I was crushed when it was canceled prematurely. I didn't know what 'shipping' someone was until I started to ship Cesare and Lucrezia together, and then I learned all about what fandoms are and etc., and sometimes I'm like, "oh I hope people 'ship' Cromwell and Anne in my story!" lol. I'm so glad you're enjoying the Seymour dynamic as I am loving writing the family. There's a lot of Seymour in this chapter and I'm interested to see where their storyline will take them by the end (I say that because I honestly don't know, my characters do what they want haha). I hope you enjoy and as always, thanks in advance for your thoughtful reviews =D**

11 May

i.

Late morning

"They've called me a raven, a streaming black raven. And shall I join the ravens that take sanctuary here, nestling in the hidden corners and holes of this fortress?"

The maid glanced around her as if hoping to find someone else to whom the queen addressed the question. But Anne was looking at her, an unflinching, searching gaze. She found her voice. "No, madam."

"No? I shouldn't? Not to fly among those poor misunderstood creatures, thought to be evil but in fact just trying to live? D'you think I don't align with them in that way?" The queen toyed with the silk of her gown, loose flowing sleeves billowing about her restless hands.

"A bird is a bird, madam," the girl tried, hoping to avoid irritating her mistress.

But the queen nodded and looked away. "You are correct, my dear. A bird is a bird, and no more. But people are more - there is more, to people, to each of us. More than a raven."

The maid just nodded eagerly, showing that she concurred.

"And..." The queen seemed out of breath suddenly, and it became apparent that she was fighting tears. She placed both hands on her torso, an effort to control her breathing. When she had eased, she shook her head. "Always more."

"My lady, would you care for anything..."

"For what? What could improve things? What could change things?" Anne demanded, brow furrowed, face hard. "Everything has been taken from me. There's nothing else that can be stripped away. But I've got everything - too much. I've got too much," she babbled, then broke off. After several moments' silence she let out a peal of laughter, and delightedly brought both hands to her face.

The maid tried to shrink away in the room, toward the door to the outer chamber. "If Your Majest should require anything for your comfort..."

But Anne had spun, turned away from her, and her gown billowed about her as she rotated. She made her way to the bed and dropped over the tightly made coverings. "That which I wanted for so long. And so deeply. I wanted it all, and now I've got it all, and nothing. Nothing!" She almost yelped, twisting her neck to catch the maid's eye.

"Yes, madam." The maid backed through the threshold.

Alone again, Anne rested her head and giggled softly in the quiet. She sighed. "Wanted it, and begged for it, and at the Lord's behest, now I've got it. Now. Unholy," she whispered.

Ravens had such the reputation for being harbingers of evil, or at least of disruption. No one ever coddled or doted on a raven. No one loved a raven. Was it even possible for ravens to love? Most would probably deny.

Yet raven curls had found one another, and had come together. Raven wings had encircled. Raven beaks had jabbed at one another; and raven eyes had never stopped their watchful ways. So at least, they were capable of that.

Anne began humming to herself, a song about a bird from childhood, whose words lent themselves to adaptation. "Oh, the little raven, hop, hop, hop." With each 'hop' she tapped a different finger on her belly, gently, for she had been sick again this morning.

She had forgotten the rest of the words, so she started over again. "Oh, the little raven..." her voice quavered and died.

Ravens weren't evil, she thought. There was nothing evil or dark or bad about their souls, whatever their outward appearances. Whatever their reputations.

Yet any little raven would carry that burden, regardless of its innocence, struggling under the weight of the world's expectations and malignance.

So perhaps it was better this way, she told herself. It must be. Her palm flattened against her lower belly, ever so slightly swollen. She wanted to sing again, but she could not muster the cheer to even hum. She fluttered her fingertips three times: hop, hop, hop. The warmth of her hand was the only source of comfort she had.

Anne turned her head to the side and closed her eyes against the bright sunshine of the day. Hot tears spilled from her eyes, dripping over her nose and striping her face horizontally. She covered her face with her free hand. Into her palm, she whispered, "I'm sorry."

ii.

The maid was flushed from forehead to shoulders, and probably further, had the Seymour girls been able to see it. Her name was Matilda – the same as one of the esteemed Seymour ancestors – and she had been all but adopted into the family as a baby, and given her name thus. Her mother had died shortly after childbirth, leaving the nameless infant alone. Both parents were in the service of the family at that time, and Margery Wentworth-Seymour had insisted that the baby be kept in the nursery with her own children: Tom a little boy, Jane a stout toddler, and Lissie a small bump in her mother's belly. When Matilda's father had died a few years later, the girl had been taken into Wolf Hall completely and had grown up with the Seymour children, fitting in like a middle sibling at times. Her parents had been much beloved servants, of Irish and Welsh descent, and Matilda proved even more capable and polished than they were.

But at this moment the girl was trembling on the threshold. "My ladies," she whispered urgently, "I…"

"What's wrong?" Lissie looked up in alarm. Matilda never interrupted when any of the siblings were having a peaceful afternoon in the upper chamber which they had made their own since childhood, referred to simply as 'upstairs.'

Jane swiveled in her seat as well, one leg bare from the calf dangling from the chair, needle poised in her hand. She furrowed her brow at the red-headed girl.

"The king!" Matilda blurted after a moment's pause. "The king is here."

"What? The King of England?" Elizabeth rolled her eyes at her own foolish question.

"What?" Jane repeated, lips parting in dismay. "Henry?"

Matilda nodded, one hand covering the dappled skin of her throat. "His Majesty himself. He awaits both of you downstairs."

Lissie and Jane exchanged a panicked glance. "Dear Lord," Lissie murmured, closing her book as Jane threw her mending on the table.

"I look a mess!" Jane cried, hands flying to her hair which was tied, again, loosely with a ribbon. "I look like a farmer's wife!"

"You look fine," Lissie insisted, getting to her feet and trying to find her left shoe. Both of her shoes had been kicked from her feet and landed somewhere on the ancient wooden floor.

"I'm not even wearing stockings," Jane fretted. "I need a bath. And some perfumed oil. Matilda – "

"Would you keep him waiting?" Lissie hissed, slipping into both shoes at last. "Matilda, go downstairs and please inform His Majesty that we will be down in a few minutes' time. Apologize for the delay. Perhaps his party – how many are with him?"

"No gentlemen, my lady, just a page waiting outside."

He had come alone – well, as alone as it was possible for him to be. "Not so terrible. Perhaps his party would enjoy some libation or wine while he waits. Give His Majesty full reign of our home. We will set Jane to rights."

Matilda was gone in a flash, leaving Jane trembling in her wake. "I don't look like I have at court," she mumbled, embarrassed.

"You look like yourself," Elizabeth clarified. "If the king loves you he won't need finery. Come on now."

Jane had chosen a lighter blue for today, another plain dress, and her hair was perfectly acceptable, Lissie thought. Tom was out riding, having taken most of the household with him. Tom did best when Edward was not nearby. He liked to play at patriarch. Sir John and Margery had been touring Savernake for the season, inspecting their vast estates. It truly was just the two ladies and the King of England.

Lissie towed Jane downstairs, the middle floor, into the latter's bedroom. "We'll just neaten you up a bit, and you'll be fine. He will appreciate the simplicity of you in the country. Perhaps that's why he's come thus: to catch you at your most natural."

"Or because he misses the woman he's gotten to know at court," Jane argued. Elizabeth could see that she was speaking through anxiety, not malice.

"Hush."

With a quick brush to make Jane's wavy hair fall down her back like spun gold, and an even quicker once-over of her garments – and the addition of a pair of stockings, "For shame," Lissie teased – the two Seymour girls were ready to receive the king.

"It's different in the country," Jane said blandly as they exited her room.

"Of course it is."

An elbow jabbed Lissie's side. "But is that what he wants?"

"God can tell," Lissie snorted. "Just be yourself. Act; don't think."

"If I do something wrong, signal me somehow."

Lissie turned to her incredulously. The two girls had just begun descending the staircase. "How am I supposed to know what's wrong?"

"I don't know," Jane hissed, low and harsh. Her hands were quaking a little and she folded them into a knot at her waist.

Elizabeth paused. "You know… when you are married to him, this will be your life. Every day."

"You think I don't realize that?" Jane threw over her shoulder as she rushed ahead, jumping down the last three stairs as she had when they were children.

Henry was in the lower chamber, the one with the great window seat where Edward and Jane had rested together that tortuous day last week. He was dusty and rivulets of sweat were still coursing down his neck, disappearing under the plain brown riding doublet he wore. He turned at the sound of female footsteps and beamed at Jane. "My love!"

"Your Majesty," Jane curtseyed and rose, beaming. "This is such a wonderful surprise."

He came forward, reaching with his hands for both of hers. "I hope you don't mind. I was taken with a longing to be in your presence. I've thought of you every moment."

Jane's head dipped in pleasure, a rosy blush blooming on her cheeks. Lissie sank into a curtsy when she neared: "Your Majesty, welcome to our home."

"Elizabeth, so wonderful to see you." He gave her a kind smile and turned back to Jane. "I've missed you, sweetheart."

"And I you. I cannot thank Your Majesty enough for the gifts I received from you. They are beyond compare… beyond anything I could have dreamed."

The king brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "I am glad they pleased you. I cannot think of a woman more deserving." He took her in. "Look at you, simple and unadorned."

Lissie felt, rather than saw, Jane tensing. "I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty, I was at my mending…"

Henry cut her off with a laugh. "Jane, don't beg me for anything! Come here." He swept her into his arms and spun her around, earning a small yelp from Jane who was not used to being touched, let alone twirled. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. "It's all right that I touch you so, darling? Lissie is here," he teased, calling to mind his vow to only speak with Jane in the presence of her family.

"Yes, my lord." Jane almost giggled, out of breath.

"Lissie, you'll chaperone us? Keep me from making an oaf of myself?" He grinned at the younger Seymour sister.

"Yes, Your Majesty. I'd be honoured."

"It'll be difficult," Henry told Jane, brushing his nose against hers. Lissie averted her eyes but strained her ears in their direction. "You look absolutely beautiful."

Jane pulled her head back. "Do I, Your Majesty? Even attired thus?"

"You would be beautiful in anything, my love," he assured her, pulling her close again. He buried his face against her neck. "God, you smell like earth. Like country air. Is there anything about you that is not pure?"

"The Lord knows all my impurities," Jane replied, "and I am sure they are many."

"None that I see. You are perfection in my eyes." And he cupped the back of her head in one palm, driving her mouth to his for a long kiss. It somehow did not surprise Lissie to see, in the corner of her vision, that Jane reciprocated: tentatively, her hands came to rest on the king's shoulders. She even gave a very slight sigh of pleasure against his lips. Lissie wondered for a moment whether she knew how that would arouse him. She decided that Jane did know.

When the kiss had finished, Henry found Jane's hands again. "I would spend this day however you choose, my love. Please – direct me. I wish to do your bidding."

"My bidding?" Jane repeated. The concept, Lissie knew, was foreign to her. A king, to do what Jane ordered? It would have been foreign to anyone, except perhaps his current wife. And Thomas Cromwell, but in a different way.

"We are in your home. I am your guest. Do with me what you please."

"I…" Jane looked around. "Perhaps Your Majesty would like a tour of our gardens? I take great pride in their beauty. The colours are beautiful at this time of year." She looked at him hesitantly.

He spread his hands apart, a gesture that said, _I am yours._ "If it's the gardens you wish to show me, my dear, let us go. Lissie, you'll walk with us, will you not?"

iii.

Afternoon

"I want to see my sister," George repeated, his gaze level with that of Kingston.

"My Lord Rochford," Kingston said again. "I beg you to understand. This is beyond my control: the order of Master Secretary Cromwell is that none of the prisoners are to see or in any wise communicate with each other."

The queen's brother snorted. "So as to bar against our discussing our widely understood innocence?" The gaoler just held his stare. "Please submit my request. My sister is, has been, in poor health and her well-being is of no great certainty. I would behold her with my own eyes - even through a barred or screened door, if that be the caveat. Ask the Secretary if his heart is really so blackened toward my sister that he would not allow her that small comfort."

"I would not presume to offer you hope, my lord..." 

"No more would I ask it of you." The intensity had faded from his face, and Rochford almost looked like a little boy. "But I would ask you to submit the request to our most industrious Master Cromwell. Please - just ask him to let me talk to my sister."

One of Cromwell's eyes narrowed, just one, as though the other was concerned with more important things. "Why?" he asked, baldly.

Kingston shrugged. "Your conjecture vies with mine, sir."

"What reason did he offer?"

"He wants to verify with his own eyes her well-being."

The secretary managed not to snort. It had been some time since he had witnessed evidence that Rochford cared for anyone's well-being other than his own. "Blame her for his lot is likely closer."

Kingston spread his hands, shadowy in this dank lower corridor of the Tower, where every hour seemed like twilight. "I can only repeat what I've been told."

"No, of course. It isn't your word or intention that I suspect." Cromwell sighed, low and long. The passageway went still around them, so still that Kingston swore he could feel the moisture dripping down the stone walls. Finally, Cromwell cleared his throat, a gesture that took more effort than one might expect. "Arrange a meeting. A half hour's audience. There are royal chambers not in use by the queen at present, are there not?"

Kingston blinked, but to his credit recovered quickly. He had not expected that instruction. "Yes, sir. A great many."

"Choose one - I trust your judgment. Something between other rooms, so they can enter on opposite sides. Appoint it with two chairs, a little table. Give them a half hour alone - guards outside both doors, of course. But..." Cromwell paused. "I don't think they're going to start rutting."

A mirthless chuckle from the gaoler. "Some wouldn't put it past them."

"Yes, well," Cromwell murmured, wiping the back of his hand across his nose where it had started to run from the dampness, "I would."

iv.

Tom's boots crunching on the gravel betrayed his panic. The steps were biting and quick. When their brother came around the shrubs behind them, Lissie shot him a glare that told him to be quiet. He fell into step beside her.

Jane and the king strolled slightly ahead, the lilt of Jane's voice a comfortable hum as she settled into the conversation. "There are these three gardens, and they were named by our ancestors, but to be quite honest with Your Majesty I don't care for the names. I would have named them differently."

Henry turned to Jane with a ready smile. "Why is that, sweetheart? What are their names?"

"The first two are not so terrible," Jane allowed. "There's 'My Old Lady's Garden' and 'My Young Lady's Garden.'"

"And the third?"

Jane frowned as if the name actually troubled her. "The Great Pallid Garden."

At her expression, Henry burst into laughter. "You look to be in pain, my love! Never have I seen a garden's name bring such disquiet."

Dimples appeared on Jane's cheeks as she laughed with him. "But when has Your Majesty ever heard such of such an inaptly named garden? A garden should never be pallid! One wonders what its creators had in mind."

When he had caught his breath, Henry drew her a bit closer. It was clear that the easy conversation and the country air were soothing him. "And would you rename them, my love?"

"Well…" Jane thought for a moment, and a fond expression lighted her face. "I would feel guilty. The gardens have existed so long in this form, and will live on after I do. I don't think they are truly mine to name."

"You are a traditionalist, my dear, and there's nothing the matter with that."

Jane made that sour face again. She did it perfectly and looked endearing while applying it. Lissie wondered if she'd practiced it in a mirror. "Perhaps they were unhappy with their own surname and expressed their frustration on the gardens. My family was known as the St. Maurs at that time."

"Were they indeed?" Henry took a deep breath, sucking the balmy air into his great lungs. "Seymour is more elegant, isn't it?"

"It's more English," Jane offered. "I think it's steadier."

The king turned a teasing look on her. "You don't find the saints steady?"

Tom and Lissie shared a glance. The implications of the king's question could be many. Jane was known for her conservative religious views; was the king asking her to verify her support of his developing brand of Catholicism?

Jane appeared to be thinking it over calmly, but Lissie knew her sister too well: the fingers of Jane's free hand twitched and grasped at her skirt, hidden from the king's view and betraying her frenzied thoughts. At last she licked her lips. "I would not presume to pass judgment on the saints themselves, as I lack the knowledge and education required to do so. But, if Your Majesty would oblige me, say my present surname after I say its predecessor – and thus we will determine which name sounds sturdier: St Maur."

"Seymour," Henry answered. "It does sound firmer. Jane St. Maur."

"And with God's blessing, it is Jane Seymour."

For a few paces, Henry stared at Jane as if in wonder. "Jane Seymour is God's blessing indeed." He looked unable to help himself as he brought them to a stop and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek, then another, and Jane did not pull away. He was making his way to her earlobe when he sensed that more people than Lissie were about and he caught sight of Tom. "Tom! Back from the ride?"

Tom bowed and made his way forward as Henry gestured for a congenial greeting. "Your Majesty, please forgive my silence. I did not want to interrupt."

"No need, Tom. It's good to see you. The ladies were threatening to usurp my power with their numbers and grace."

A grin spread across Tom's boyish face. The roguish side of Henry was one with whom he would get along best. "We shall protect each other's interest against their feminine stratagem, shall we, sire?"

Another peal of laughter from Henry as he turned back to Jane, tilting his face up to catch the sun. All this abandon from a man whose wife was about to be tried for adultery with a half dozen men, as well as incest, touched Lissie's stomach in an unsettling way. "Tom, Elizabeth – I would speak with Jane alone. Not truly alone, but…"

"Say no more, Majesty." Tom linked his arm through Elizabeth's elbow and drew her back. "We shall keep a safe distance."

"Not too safe. Your sister is beautiful. I would not break the promise I made to her."

Tom nodded deeply, and the pair of chaperones hung back, taking only tiny steps forward in a funny little effort to be subtle. Jane and Henry continued on. The king bent his head closer to Jane and spoke evenly, with Jane nodding and murmuring assent and concurrence.

"What d'you think they're talking about?" Lissie whispered, as though they needed to be quiet.

"Wedding plans?"

"Seems too early. The betrothal is not official. The queen hasn't even gone to trial yet…"

Tom snickered. "It's a foregone conclusion, though, Lissie. The king knows his future. He sees it. He holds it in his arms." He gestured to ahead of them, where one royal arm encircled Jane's shoulders. Jane inclined her head toward Henry with what looked like a sigh of pleasure.

"She would be a fool to count on it, though. Until the ring is on her finger…"

Dark eyes narrowed at her, genuinely inquisitive. "You think so? I really don't agree. He plainly adores her."

Lissie nodded. "But the next week, at least, will be hellacious. Who knows how our king will emerge."

"I would stake our holdings on it."

Now Lissie chuckled, softer than the breeze that blew one stray wisp of Jane's blonde hair across her cheek as she turned to look at her suitor. "You would be a fool. You should never wager more than you're willing to lose."

"I think that depends on what you stand to win." Tom's eyes traced the bejeweled hand that was caressing Jane's hair.

v.

The queen tensed backward, only by a half step, but her anxiety was at once apparent. "Where?"

"This way, my lady." Kingston beckoned with one hand: come along.

She swallowed. This sounded like the beginning of too many mythological stories. "I would," she found her voice, "know where you mean to take me, Master Kingston."

"Just out of your rooms for a short spell."

"Will my ladies –" She began to turn.

"They can stay here."

Anne's breath hitched, her chest almost heaving inside her stomacher, and Kingston tried not to let himself be distracted by its unusual fullness. Not that he had been paying attention to its normal level of fullness. He could see that she did not trust him, did not trust his word. "Majesty…"

"I won't go if I won't be told where and why," she declared, but her voice was tremulous.

Her maids had shied back from her and now looked to and fro nervously, darting glances among themselves. This was turning into far too big a spectacle. He bowed and approached Anne with as much reverence as one could to a prisoner. "My lady, I take you for a private audience a few chambers away. We will be back within the hour. I give you my word and that of Master Secretary Cromwell."

A harsh bite of laughter escaped Anne's lips, truly escaped, or so it seemed from the way she clapped a palm over her mouth. Her eyes were wide at her behaviour, but they still danced with a humour that he failed to understand. "Oh, my. Well, ladies," she turned to address the girls, suddenly all lightness and ease, "I go away to an audience. If I don't return, you must take Master Kingston to task."

Nervous affirmation was the only response. Anne reached out and laid a hand against Kingston's forearm. It was undeniably warm, and were his skin not protected by his jacket, he thought that her touch might burn him. "Come, Your Majesty. Please follow me."

Her giggling followed her from the room and echoed around them, bouncing against the stone walls which also reflected the flickering torch that lit them. Even in the middle of the day, the tapers were lit here, in the Tower, Anne's home; and its walls volleyed her laughter to and fro, each sound absorbing into the stone walls that had echoed for centuries with the torture and triumph of the royalty of England.

vi.

When Jane and the king returned to the company of Lissie and Tom, Henry was beaming and Jane showed a bit of anxiety through her smile. Henry addressed Tom. "I wonder if it would be a vast imposition for your family to host me for an overnight stay?"

Tom never paused. "Imposition? It would be a delight, my lord."

"I am grateful for that. A holiday from…" Henry shook his head a little, more to clear it than anything else, it seemed. "A respite."

"Any country hospitality we can show you, Your Majesty, we will be honoured to." Lissie lowered her eyes and spoke smoothly. "Please only tell us what you might desire."

"Nothing grand, please. A simple dinner, a quiet evening. A restful slumber breathing country air might do me a world of good."

Elizabeth put her fingers to her mouth in thought. "I wonder if Your Majesty would see fit to make your home in Edward's bedroom –"

"We've got a guest room, Lissie," Tom cut in, eyes darting between his sisters and the king. "Beautifully wrought, Your Majesty."

"We do," she agreed. "But Edward's bedroom – which, of course, my brother rarely uses – is on the east corner and boasts windows on two sides. If you desire fresh air, the windows could be opened so you can feel the breeze. And the view of the sunrise from that room…" she trailed off, stopping herself from saying something that might bring questions to mind. "Would be beautiful, I think."

The king nodded, grinning. "That sounds like heaven on earth. Tom, you're the man of the house. Do you approve?"

Tom smiled back. "I envy Your Majesty. None of us has ever had the joy of sleeping in Edward's room." Jane nodded in assent.

"I hope it will be fit for Your Majesty," Lissie said, keeping her tone as neutral as her words.

vii.

Kingston's eyes betrayed absolutely no hidden message, no warning; the man was either more dutiful than Cromwell or more evil, and to Anne's irritation she had not been able to decide which of those she believed to be true.

The gaoler bowed and backed out of the room and Anne turned to watch him, her fingers weaving together aimlessly as they always did when she was uncomfortable. When the door clicked shut behind him, she listened for footsteps, but there were none. He waited outside. Although she had yet to decide what kind of man he was, this fact was of some small measure of comfort to her.

The queen turned back toward the center of the room, looking beyond the two little chairs and the small table with a jug of wine and two hammered-tin goblets that had been appointed there. She recognized the thick rug on the floor. She and Cromwell had picked it out together when Henry had charged them with the task of redecorating these rooms three years ago. She had wanted something with a more fanciful pattern and bright colours, but as most of the apartments had begun to look that way when she was left alone with the furniteurs, Cromwell had cocked his head at her and suggested that perhaps the entire fortress didn't need to look like a ladies' lounge. She, with her hands resting on her round belly where her baby kicked and squirmed, had agreed, laughter like a ringing bell making Cromwell smile and accept her apology. Anne shut her eyes against the memory briefly, one hand pressing against her midsection gently. At this point, the irony barely registered.

She looked up and, unfortunately, her brother was still there. George had been waiting in the room for her and when Kingston showed her in, Anne's eyes had found every means of avoiding his face. He was watching her carefully, the earnestness and concern in his face too much to bear. She had no desire to speak with him.

"Anne," he said, her name a plea, desperate on his tongue. As though he had been calling to her all this time and she hadn't responded. Although, she would admit the possibility.

She folded her hands into some semblance of a calm clasp. "Brother."

Watching George's face, one would think she had greeted him with the tip of a dagger instead of with a word. "How…" he faltered. What was there to say? "How fare you?"

She almost smiled as her gaze circled the room dazedly. "I think you can guess at that."

There was a silence; George appeared to be searching for his words. Anne shifted her weight between her two feet. "I heard you laughing," George tried.

Anne smiled. "Just now?"

George smiled back. "Always."

She nodded in acknowledgement and took a hesitant step forward, toward the chairs in the middle of the room. "I don't know where the humour comes from."

Still grinning, George shook his head. "Neither do I."

Silence fell again, and Anne made her way to a chair and sat down. George shuffled over, physically distant as if she had some contagious illness. He lowered himself into his chair and she saw that his shirt was nicely pressed. She wondered for a moment whether he had been given time to pack a bevy of shirts, or somehow found a laundering service within their prison.

"Wine?" George offered, gesturing toward the jug.

She shook her head. "No, thank you."

When their eyes accidentally met, both looked away guiltily. When had they become strangers?

George tugged at his collar, which was starched enough that it made no difference. His agitation was apparent in his fidgeting and skittish eyes. He cleared his throat longer than he needed to, as if delaying an admission. Then: "I… told Cromwell you were guilty."

Her wide-set blue eyes flew up to meet his. Her face was still tilted downward, looking at the carpet that she had settled on. "Of?"

"All of it." His face was braced, it seemed, for a blow.

"Except with you," she amended.

"Except with me," he whispered.

The corners of her eyes and the corners of her mouth sank into the lines of a soft smile as her eyes fell back to the carpet. George thought that she had not looked so young and angelic in years. Since before Henry. Since before all of them. When she had been just Anne, Anne, his sister.

Now she cleared her throat. "And did it buy you the mercy you hoped it would?"

She didn't have to look up to see him shaking his head.

"He…" his voice caught again. "He told me I must confess and be cut into two pieces, or not confess and be cut into seven."

Anne snickered, but it looked to George like her eyes had filled with tears. "He has a way with words, doesn't he?"

George tried to chuckle. It wedged in his throat. "Yes."

"And will you yield?"

"Will you?" he shot back, not defensively but desperately, his words almost tripping hers.

"I've nothing to confess. I would say that you know that, but perhaps you don't."

His lips parted. "Anne –"

"It doesn't matter now, George. This is hardly a time for sibling squabbles. You're facing your death. We all are. And no, I won't confess. But even if I did…" she met his eyes and then looked down. "I will only be cut into two pieces, so that decision weighs on me not at all."

"If you confess, perhaps you'll be sent to a convent. Perhaps the king will spare you."

As intently as George watched Anne, he missed the way she slid her palms over her lower belly before clasping them in her lap. "I can't do that."

"Yes you can –"

"No. I can't." She held his gaze now. "I won't. Use our remaining minutes together to a better purpose, brother."

His nostrils flared and he looked down, taking a moment to collect himself. "This is the last time we will speak."

"Yes."

"Have you… has Father sent any message?"

"No. To you?"

"No."

Anne's eyes were still riveted on his face. "I told you we'd lost." The statement died halfway through, and she reached one hand up to swipe at her overflowing eyes.

George nodded and rubbed the heel of one hand angrily across his own watery cheeks. As if reminded, he tugged a clean handkerchief from his sleeve and held it out to her. Their fingertips touched briefly as she took it.

Anne chuckled through her tears as she dabbed at them. "Careful not to tell anyone about that."

A burst of laughter not unlike her own was his response. "It would be turned into carnality in a moment's time," he agreed.

Anne twisted the handkerchief, embroidered somewhat sloppily with a version of the Boleyn family crest, between her fingers. "Do you ever think of Mary?"

"All the time."

She nodded. "I wish…"

"I do too," he answered. "Every day."

Anne looked up with a brave, bright smile. "We are fools, aren't we?"

George smiled back; both Boleyn siblings, two of the foremost figures in the kingdom two weeks ago, crying and laughing together. He would go to his death in her honour, seven pieces or more if Cromwell wished, for nothing had ever been so clear to him as now was the truth, that his sister was more a queen than any woman royally born. "It seems to me that everyone at court is a fool. Fortune or fatality can strike at any of us, at any moment. Like lightning."

She nodded slowly. "D'you ever wish… we hadn't?"

"Hadn't what?" His brow wrinkled.

"Become this."

George paused. "Well – we didn't exactly choose to become this. It happened…"

"No, I know. But do you ever wish it hadn't happened?"

He took a deep breath as he thought, wiping his dripping nose on the back of one hand. At length, he shook his head. "No."

She tried to smile again, but it quivered and dissolved. "Neither do I."

"How long d'you think Jane Seymour will last?"

Anne spread the handkerchief on her lap, flattening it out and smoothing the wrinkles. She began to fold it in half, painstakingly, as though it mattered. "As Henry's passion: a few months. As his devoted, submissive wife… indefinitely."

"She'll give him leave," George agreed.

"She'll do better than I did." Anne nodded in affirmation, plucking the edges of the handkerchief to fold it down into quarters.

"But she'll never be what you are."

"Were."

He shook his head. "Are. You are still what you are, whether or not you are his queen and love. No one can take that from you."

Her nose twisted to one side as she thought. "I suppose you're right. But everything else can be taken. And has… or, will."

"You'll make do with what you've got. You always have."

Her stomach felt sick looking at him, the loyalty and apology radiating from his face, and she wanted to turn and retch into the nearest basin. She swallowed, willing the acid in her stomach to settle. "Don't sanctify me," she warned.

"I'm only describing what I see. While I have the chance." His tone was gentle, but there was no mistaking his meaning.

"And would you have me do the same for you?"

George shook his head. "No… for you would convince me nothing."

"You assume I would try," she teased.

He chuckled. "I do."

"And – I would."

"I know you would." He paused. "I'm lucky to have known you, Anne."

Now her brow wrinkled incredulously. "Known me? You speak as though we're acquaintances."

"I barely know how I speak," he confessed. "I feel as though part of me has come undone."

"I understand that."

Neither of them knew what else to say, and so silence fell between them, but a mutually comfortable silence this time. After several peaceful minutes, Anne looked up from the small square handkerchief in her palm.

"When you told Master Cromwell I had slept with the others, did he believe you?"

George's forehead wrinkled as his eyes raised to meet hers. "He doesn't believe any of this. Anyone can see it in his face."

"But did he seem taken aback?"

"No. Maybe surprised at my testimony," George allowed, looking ashamed, "but nothing registered on his face other than how to use my statement against me. As you said: he's skilled at words."

Anne nodded and looked back down.

"Why? Would you want him to believe me?"

"No," Anne murmured. "Curiosity."

A few minutes later, Kingston tapped on the door. "My lady, we've only allotted a number of minutes for this meeting," he said as he looked back and forth between the Boleyns.

"Yes, Master Kingston. We shall say our farewells. Thank you." The gaoler slipped from the room and Anne turned back to George. "I suppose…"

All at once George was on his knees, sinking on the floor beside her chair. "Are you safe?" he whispered, almost inaudibly. "Are you… I've thought…"

"I'm fine," she reassured him. "I've been treated well."

But her brother was almost sneering. "I don't trust him. Cromwell. I don't trust his orders to the guards."

Anne tried not to laugh, remembering how Cromwell had growled almost the same way. _I will carve his innards out with a letter opener._ How close he had been to her face, noses almost touching, as though proposing something intimate. Although, given the timing of his vow to her, what intimacy was left to propose between them? "You needn't worry yourself with that. Truly – I am secure and have ladies around me."

"Cromwell's choices, no doubt. I pray for your protection from peril."

She placed her hand on his face, cupping her palm around his jaw and molding her fingers to his cheekbone, memorizing him, he who had once been her brother and playmate and dearest friend. "No use trying to have the almighty intervene against my peril. Or any of ours. You know that."

"I know," George blinked rapidly, and for the first time she saw how red his eyes were, strained and slightly swollen from past weeping. She wondered if she looked the same. "But I would still beg the Lord for your safekeeping against danger."

Anne ran her hand over her brother's hair, unruly and always in need of a cut, it seemed. After a moment's hesitation, she leant down and kissed his cheek, not the rushed kiss of a woman accused of incest but the gentle, loving kiss of a sister who must find a way to say goodbye forever. "Haven't you heard?" she whispered in his ear, grasping for a joke so she wouldn't cry. "There's no danger for me. I'm Anne Boleyn, the Unholy Queen, treasonous seductress and incestuous adulterer. I _am_ the danger."

George chuckled and she felt the hot rush of his tears on her cheek. As she pulled back, he kissed her lips chastely, pressing his mouth on hers because it was the last chance he would have to tell her he loved her but he couldn't say the words. "I would beg your forgiveness," he murmured against her lips, and she tasted salt where his grief fell onto her tongue.

"You know you don't need to." Anne sat up straight and wiped away his tears. "But get back in your chair before someone sees."

When Kingston came in to collect the queen a few minutes later, she and her brother were sitting in silence, both blank of expression and slack of posture. Anne leant heavily on the gaoler's arm as she stood, with one last sideways wavering smile to her brother and no word of farewell. Tucked in her palm was the damp handkerchief with their family crest, which Anne took as a parting gift and which George had never intended to get back.

viii.

Evening

After dinner, the four settled into the lower chamber to wait for dark. The days stretched long: summer was indeed upon them. Tom agreed to a chess match against the king but both men quickly lost interest. Jane sat in that great window seat, hands folded, prim and straight-backed. The king sank down beside her, unbuttoning the top of his doublet, while Tom took the chair next to Elizabeth. "Would that all of life could be thus."

Lissie thought that was an insincere comment. The king loved court. He loved power. He loved extravagance. A simple life in the country would never suit him. But she reminded himself that he was a king, and kings were wont to speak as they wished.

Matilda slipped into the room, served a goblet of chilled wine to each of the three Seymours and their royal guest, and retreated as noiselessly as she had come. Comfortable silence settled, or at least Elizabeth felt comfortable, until she sensed that Tom was fidgeting, wondering how to entertain his king. She prayed he would not interrupt the solitude that the king was so obviously enjoying.

Luckily, a short time later Henry saved them. "I feel closer to God here. I feel as though the Almighty can reach me with greater ease; without all the useless…" he waved his arm vaguely. "The bodies, and the papers, and all the talk. I feel as if God sits in the room with us."

None of the Seymours could find the words to respond to this profound comment.

At last, feeling the quiet descend into discomfiture, Lissie's eye fell on a Bible that sat nearby. "Perhaps," she began tentatively, "Your Majesty would care to hear some scripture?"

Henry smiled. "That would be… divine." He began to turn to Jane.

"My sister has a lovely reading voice," Jane declared, only a bit of haste detectable in her tone. Jane had never told the king that she could neither read nor write, and apparently this was not the moment where she wanted to break the news. "Lissie, read us a passage?"

Elizabeth snatched the Bible and opened it before the conversation could take a turn. "Ecclesiastes," she said, and cleared her throat. "There is a time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth, and a time to die."

The king exhaled and sank deeper into the window seat. He placed his goblet on a small table nearby. He mouthed the next words along with Lissie, although she was sure that no one else saw:

"A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted."

She turned the page to find the next line and noticed that Henry's hand had found Jane's; his palm covered her knuckles. His fingers were easing their way through hers.

"A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up."

Jane turned her head slightly and beamed at her future husband, her king. Her eyes were alight with the candles that Matilda had lit when the sun had been midway to setting. Not for the first time that day, Elizabeth's stomach turned a little. She had seen Anne Boleyn look at her husband that way. And she had seen her mistress' eyes shine in that way as she held back tears as well.

"A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance."

Lissie paused as she realized this may not have been the wisest choice of passages, but she could hardly stop now. The silent admirers on the window seat didn't seem to be listening too closely, anyway, she noted.

"A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace – and a time to shun embracing."

One of Jane's bare fingers came, hesitantly, to touch the back of the king's hand. She stroked her way, feather-light, up and down his index finger. The king watched the contact of their hands, entranced.

"A time to search and a time to give up, as lost. A time to keep. And a time to throw away."

The king turned his hand slightly and slid her finger through his, encircling it between his own.

"A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together…"

Jane was blushing as if no one had ever touched her so intimately as Henry was right now.

"A time to be silent, and a time to speak."

Their eyes met; Jane looked away quickly as if she could not bear the emotion. But a small, secret smile graced her mouth. And she met his eyes again after a moment, the effort required to do so written plainly on her face.

"A time to love, and a time to hate."

And Lissie recognized their expressions, because she had seen them before, recently. Too recently.

"A time for war and a time for peace."

Lust, chaste lust if that would be possible, flowed between them.

She kept her eyes on the page. "What profit is there to the worker, from that in which he toils? I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves."

Silence fell again. She wasn't sure whether she should read on, but she was sure that she didn't want to. Eventually, the king smiled over at her. "Thank you, Elizabeth. That was lovely."

"It was, truly. Thank you." Jane beamed at her too. Their hands maintained their contact.

"One of my favourite passages," Tom concurred, a lie that all three Seymours recognized. Tom had no favourite scriptural passages.

"I would thank you all for hosting me," the king said suddenly. "Truly – you don't know what it means to me to know that I can find a place here, among you all. Good, true English people. The St. Maurs no longer." He winked sideways at Jane, who smiled and looked down at her lap.

"It has been our pleasure," Tom insisted.

Henry parted his lips and paused. "Perhaps, but I'm not a fool, Tom – I know it's a burden to receive a king. I know it requires a great deal of protocol and thought and pomp, and I recognize that I appeared from nowhere, my very presence demanding some special considerations. You all have made me manage to forget that I am a king, and feel like a mere man visiting friends in the country. I can't tell you… in this difficult time… what that means to me." His blue eyes seemed to well with tears. "I can't tell you in what high regard I hold your family. You all are the flower of England."

Unexpectedly, Jane moved her other hand to cover the king's, which held her fingers. He turned to her. "I hope I speak for my siblings as well as myself when I say that anything we have is yours for the asking, Your Majesty. We are grateful for your company, not just your presence. We've so enjoyed spending the day with you that we are more beholden to you for coming here to spend this time with us – free of pomp – than you are to us for having you."

The words flowed with a firmness and eloquence that was unusual for Jane. Truly, Lissie had to wonder where all this recent articulation had come from. Perhaps Jane was preparing for her role as queen. Perhaps she had been practicing these sorts of phrases alone in bed at night. Perhaps she was truly so in love with Henry that her words flowed, unbidden, from her heart.

Whatever the source, the king was moved by her sentiment. "Thank you, my love. I would bid you excuse me. I am exhausted from all the joy and pleasantness of this day." He directed the statements, apologetically, toward all three Seymours. Tom and Lissie bid him goodnight, and after a lingering kiss on Jane's hand, Henry left them.

Elizabeth, Jane, and Tom spent above a minute looking at one another. Jane licked her lips. "I think…"

"I agree," Tom nodded.

Lissie shook her head. "Jane, that may be a fatal error."

"I don't see how."

"Because it isn't." Tom held up his hand at Elizabeth. "Your instincts are right. He's come all this way because he felt himself compelled to see your face. God's sake, you're dressed like a common lady in the market and he was falling all over himself professing devotion. He's besotted."

"He's been besotted with others," Lissie pointed out.

Jane shook her head. "I don't care about the others. He loves me. I love him. We desire each other; we'll shortly be married. In his eyes, I can feel it, he thinks we are married already."

"He'll expect that you want to wait until the marriage bed."

"And I always have – but this seems like a sign from the Almighty. Here in my own home, having given me all these gifts, and there's…" Jane trailed off, slightly embarrassed.

"D'you desire him?" Lissie asked.

The blonde's cheeks reddened. "Of course I do."

"Carnally?"

She glared at Lissie. "Yes. Carnally. I may be devoted to God, but I'm a flesh and blood woman."

"And," Tom said with a dramatic flourish of one hand, "he'll die of happiness to discover that his pure and loving mistress has such feelings for him. It will complete your perfection in his eyes."

"Or call into question her virtue," Lissie suggested. Privately, she was unconcerned with this exchange. At worst, Jane would give herself to the king and he would lose interest and marry another. And to what effect? Her family would not climb, but would have the benefit of not standing themselves up on an unsturdy pedestal.

Jane looked annoyed. "I'm not going to strip naked and peacock into his room. For God's sake." Lissie just shrugged.

Tom had been concentrating during their exchange, and spoke suddenly. "Jane – I must say – you've proven yourself exceptionally able today, exceptionally able to handle yourself. He's more in love with you now than when he arrived, and that's no one's doing but your own. If you think that going to his bed is not a mistake, and if that's what you both desire, I regard you as capable of making that decision."

"Edward would box your ears," Lissie commented.

"Edward isn't here," Tom and Jane replied, one on top of the other, as they both turned to glare at her. She just nodded resignedly.

After another silence, Jane stood, shaky. She plucked up Henry's unfinished wine and took a gulp. Tom raised his own goblet. "To the St. Maurs. I am certain they would take pride in you." Jane smiled.

Crossing the short space to her siblings, the blonde held out her cup. "To the Seymours. To family."

"To family," Tom agreed.

Lissie clinked her goblet against theirs. "To family." After she swallowed: "I wish Edward was here."

"That makes one of us," Tom chided as Jane drained her cup. "Good tidings, Jane." He caught her hand and drew her in, a quick kiss on her lips to seal the sentiment. Lissie watched the exchange. She and Edward never did that. But then, there was a reason. And a time for everything.

Jane smoothed her skirts. "I bid you both a fair evening."

"Would you have us stay down here?" Tom asked.

"No – Edward's room is far enough from everything. But perhaps wait awhile."

"Good luck, sister," Lissie called as Jane left the room.

Tom was looking at her with an irritatingly smug expression. "What a surprise. Jane has the mind of a bold gambler."

There was one sip left in her goblet, and Lissie savoured it. "And I hope she is willing to bear the loss if she's wrong."

**A/N: Dun dun dun… will they or won't they? **

**Also, is everything clear? I keep playing with writing style and pacing so the story isn't as fleshed out as it was in earlier stages, but that's all part of the experiment of writing this story and also relates to most of our characters going through severe emotional changes and trauma.**

**Again, please leave me a review if you would be so kind =D Many thanks for reading and I hope to update again soon!**


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N: To my subscribers: did you have a moment of disbelief when I published this chapter just a week after the last one? You're not the only one who can't believe it! lol I'm pleased at how quickly this came together… and hopefully it pleases you too!**

**HALove, I'm not going to lie, I cried writing the scene between Anne and George. I'm so glad you had an emotional reaction too – that's such a wonderful compliment as a writer. It didn't go at all as I planned it, but when I was writing it, it all started to flow like I was watching a scene between the two of them (and I thought their relationship could have been so much deeper than the show took it). I'm also pleased to hear that the Henry/Jane chemistry is working for you as I'm still working on my own understanding of it. Please let me know what you think of this chapter, too! =D**

**Rae, never fear, darling, we've awhile to go yet. And I promise you'll continue to find the chapters worth reading! I am so excited that you're a senior now – I feel like we've "known" each other for awhile lol. I have a good friend your age and she's starting to look at schools too. Let me know if you need any help with your applications – I freelance edit college and grad school admissions essays and have a pretty good track record =) Don't be nervous! College and adult life is going to be the best thing that ever happens to you! But back to your review… so please read on to see what happened with Henry and Jane, and this chapter is heavy on the Seymours (I can't help it, the story is becoming about them too and I'm letting it happen lol) so I'll be looking forward to any thoughts on that. I agree – Anne is too brilliant not to have a zillion stories about her, and Natalie Dormer played her in such a unique way that it gave rise to multiple interpretations of the character which we all enjoy exploring to our own tastes. Anne is hard for me to write at the moment as I think she'd be a lot of borderline-unstable musings and I want to not overwhelm the prose with that, so I'm trying to choose her scenes wisely. But I promise we will get much more of her before long =) PS did you start The Borgias? We gotta talk about that. re: shipping incest, I'm really really glad I'm not weird for having that happen in my story. I didn't plan it, but it seemed so natural. I also saw chemistry between Dormer/Frain on the show and I guess began to create this storyline then, far before I started writing which was in 2010. So I do ship my own pairings (they are called OTPs right? My OTPs are canon! Look at me using the lingo lol)… which is good, at least for my own inspiration. Thanks as always for your kind words and time in reviewing!**

i.

11 May

Middle of the Night

Lissie was lying awake, trying to shut her ears against any moans of pleasure or shouts of pain – although she didn't want to ponder what sort of pain that might be – when her bedchamber door eased open. She perked up in the darkness, straining her neck to see who had entered. She entertained a brief moment of joy and panic that it might be Edward, somehow; but no. The figure stepped lightly into the room and closed the door.

"What happened?" she asked.

Jane turned and scurried across the floor, barefoot, her white nightshift touching her knees gracefully as she drew it up to climb onto her sister's bed. "Oh, God, Elizabeth," she murmured dreamily.

"'Oh, God,' what?" In spite of herself, she bit her lip in eagerness. She wanted to know how it had been, how Jane's first time had been. She wanted to know what it was like to be with a man.

"We didn't," Jane said on an exhale, the denial sounding more intimate and succulent than the closest detail of lovemaking. She knelt on the bed, her loose hair spilling over both shoulders. "We… Henry declared that he must wait for me."

Lissie wrinkled her brow, thankful that Jane couldn't see in the dark. "Why must he?"

"He said… 'No more could I do for love.'" Jane's lips bubbled with a delighted little gurgle, quite more merry than the sounds that Lissie normally heard from her sister, and the blonde collapsed onto her side with another delighted sigh. She hit the pillow beside Lissie and unfurled her body, stretching her legs downward and her arms above her head. "No more could he do for love."

Elizabeth rolled onto one side. She had not expected this. "Did he kiss you?"

"More than that." Jane licked her lips. "He used his mouth… on my neck."

Lissie repressed a laugh. Jane made that piece of information sound like a royal scandal. "How was it?" she insisted nonetheless.

Had the night not been so clear and quiet, so clear and quiet that crickets chorused a score that filled Lissie's whole bedchamber, she might have missed Jane's soft reply: "It was heaven."

There was a long pause. Elizabeth could not tell whether Jane wanted to divulge more details, but she must have come here after having left the king, and apparently, after having undressed and prepared for bed – Jane had gone to Henry clothed, and now wore her nightshift alone – for a reason, Lissie decided. "What else?" she prompted simply, her voice low with half-excitement, half-skepticism.

"He…" Jane's eyes were shut and she was lying flat on her back, hands folded and resting on her ribs. "He touched me."

Lissie's heart quickened. "Elsewhere?"

Jane just nodded, smiling. "I could never have imagined the feeling."

Just then, Lissie's bedchamber door opened again, with less hesitation and subtlety this time. Lissie twisted toward the noise from where she lay on her side, head propped against her fist, and made out the dim figure of Tom.

"Lissie –" he started, and then his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw that two figures were before him. "Jane?"

"Brother," Jane greeted without moving.

"God in heaven," Tom groaned, clearly expecting that the circumstances having brought Jane here must have been bad ones. "What happened?" Without waiting for an invitation, he started toward the bed and crawled onto it, settling between his sisters' ankles: Lissie's an uneven lump under the blankets, Jane's crossed at the bottom of her un-stockinged legs.

Jane hoisted herself onto both elbows, smiling. "It was divine, Tom."

He chuckled, relieved. "It usually is, sister."

Jane's lifelong modesty surfaced then, her blush almost visible in the dark, as she pulled back. "No – we didn't."

Tom checked. "Did he reject you then? Was he offended?"

"No," Jane breathed again. She shook her head to brush her hair back, and one side of her shift slipped from her shoulder. She faced Tom, smiling, unconcerned with her bare skin. "He says we must wait; it is what we must do for love."

"Ah." Tom grinned. With one finger, he grazed a teasing line up the sole of Jane's foot, heel to toe. She squirmed a little, and he squeezed her toes, palming all five at once, a brotherly gesture. Lissie traced the line of Jane's nightshift as it dipped halfway down one upper arm; as it lay rucked up almost to her knees. For what felt like the thousandth time since they'd been home, Lissie looked carefully at her sister's expression, the profile and eyes she'd known for her whole life, for some depth that she'd never seen before. Perhaps something that Jane had just acquired. But again she found nothing. "So, the two of you engaged in other… 'divine' acts?"

"Yes." Jane lowered herself back to her pillows, pointing her foot so that it arched against Tom's hand.

"Prayer?" Tom quipped.

Jane kicked his hand in reproach. "For shame." She left her foot in his hand.

"For shame, indeed," Tom nodded at Lissie. "Our pious sister, just back from the king's bed."

"Not his bed," Lissie corrected. "They didn't go to bed."

She felt, rather than saw, Tom rolling his eyes. "And how did His Majesty leave things with you?"

"After he stopped our kissing, we spoke briefly about waiting, and I backed away from him –"

"Please tell me you were trembling or something the like."

Jane frowned up at the ceiling. "I was flushed and unsure what to do with myself, Tom. Give me a moment's mercy. I've never experienced emotion or sensation like that."

"Honestly, Tom," Lissie scolded. "She isn't a hired performer."

"And I said I was overwhelmed with love and needed to withdraw, and I hoped he would forgive me. Before I got out the door, he caught my hand and kissed my palm." She brandished the hand as one would a bouquet of flowers.

Tom let out a contented sigh. "My darling sister," he enunciated, seizing her wrist and hauling her to sitting so he could kiss her forehead. "Our pride and fortune."

Now Lissie rolled her eyes and nudged him with her foot. "You're mussing my bedlinens. Straighten them before you go," she warned. "God forbid someone see them in such disarray."

"That's the least of our problems if someone were to find me here," he shot back, grinning down at where she lay, hands still on Jane's neck. "In bed with my two sisters? Think of the jokes they'd make about the king's taste."

No one had to ask what he meant.

Jane let a delicate giggle slide past her lips as she brushed her nose against Tom's and adjusted herself to sit up straight. "If only Edward were here," she murmured, meeting Lissie's gaze, her eyes shining in the dark. Tom scoffed, but the sisters shared a silent moment of understanding, of suspicion, of mutual mistrust. And in that moment, murky and brief though it was, Lissie grasped that Jane was becoming less and less the sister she'd grown up with.

"Mmm," Lissie responded noncommittally. She flopped onto her back, breaking eye contact with her siblings. "I am for sleep."

"As we should all be," Tom concurred. He slid from the bed in one gangly movement, his frame typically too long for Lissie's furniture.

Jane yawned audibly and rotated so that she, too, could move from the room. "Pity I didn't get to see the sunrise from Edward's room," she tossed over her shoulder as she walked toward the foot of the bed and accepted Tom's waiting arm. "Goodnight, Lissie."

For an hour after Jane and Tom departed, images of Henry's bejeweled fingers buried in Jane's hair, gripping her neck and shoulders, sliding up her bare back, danced before Lissie's closed eyes. Edward never wore rings, although he owned many. She wondered how it would feel to have someone gripping her like that, stripped bare under his hands, and to fall into bed together, not stopping until they both came undone. No gold chains of office, no rings, no pulling away. She thought of the way Jane had nudged her foot into Tom's hands, into Edward's lap, staking claim to both her brothers; the way she had slipped her body into Henry's arms, folding herself against him, staking claim to her king.

Angry tears pricked at Lissie's eyes, but even as they slipped sideways over her temples and soaked her hairline, she could not bring her mind to see clearly why.

ii.

12 May

Morning

Riche nodded. "Brandon's a good choice."

"He's an obvious choice," Cromwell agreed. "And as one of the premier peers in the realm…"

"And since we can't have the foremost duke," Riche continued, "it would make sense."

Cromwell blinked. "Why would you say that?"

Riche's brows screwed together. "Norfolk? He's the queen's uncle." Both men were silent. "You cannot be serious. Thomas…"

"Uncle, father, or lover, he'd have duties to his crown." Cromwell sighed. "You know that."

"I suppose you'll have Wiltshire sit in judgment on them too? Oh, no, wait – he's in the Tower with them. On what charge again?" Riche let out a mirthless chuckle.

Cromwell smiled with similar humourlessness. "Potential mischief, I suppose."

Riche nodded slowly, taking in all of this information. "So – Suffolk, Norfolk. They're both nearby. Who must we summon?"

"Westmoreland," Cromwell intoned, looking down at the list he'd drawn up.

"Neville?" Riche looked confused again.

"He's an enemy of the Reformation, and therefore an enemy of Anne."

"And an enemy of yours?"

Cromwell shrugged. "It isn't my aid he's bid to assist. He loves the king. He'll want to see the royal will done."

"Aye." Riche copied down the names onto his own list, which was to be a working replica of Cromwell's.

"We'll also need to fetch Harry Percy down from Northumberland."

The younger man looked genuinely startled. "Percy? Is his endorsement that necessary? He's supposedly seriously ill."

The secretary sighed. "It's a diplomatic illness, I'm sure. He likely wants to distance himself as far from Anne's reputation as possible, lest we send him on holiday to the Tower too."

"The illness has been rumoured for above a year, and is said to be getting worse."

"Hmm. Maybe I ought to spend more time with the court gossips," Cromwell chided, dipping his quill and placing a checkmark next to Percy's name. "Add him. What message would it send if he were not present to convict the king's most disloyal wife?"

Riche raised his eyebrows. "That he's dying?"

Cromwell continued as though he had not spoken. "We'll also need to get Jane Rochford's father down here, and Lord Wentworth – not that anyone would doubt the Seymours' condemnation of the queen and her lovers."

"While we're at it," Riche said lightly as he scribbled, "should we go ahead and hold Christmas? We're importing half the court."

One corner of Cromwell's mouth twitched into a smile as he continued. "Lord Sandys, Lord Mordaunt, Lord Windsor – we'll have Lord Dacre, too, and give him a chance to redeem himself in the king's eyes."

"The allegations against him have just been dropped. Has he not been redeemed?"

"It's fresh enough that we can count on his unconditional and immediate support of anything that would please His Majesty. When he sees the blade of the axe outside the court, his loyalty will be reinforced tenfold."

Riche's pen hovered yet above his lap. "So we're educating as well as damning?"

"Richard, you know I value efficiency. Why accomplish one singular goal when we could effect several worthwhile ends?"

"But we're leaving out Mistress Seymour's immediate family, yes?"

"They aren't lords. I see no reason that they should be included."

Riche nodded. "Mmm. And how many more jurors? What's the precedent on this sort of thing? If there is one, I'm sure you've found it and are enacting it."

"Or amending it to fit my needs," Cromwell countered. "But no – no precedent. We'll summon the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague. It'll be a nice opportunity to demonstrate for them that His Majesty's will, be it volatile or steady, must have its way. And perhaps instill some sense of honour in them so they'll stop tiptoeing about glorifying Catherine's memory and holding Mary up as the rightful heir. Thinking themselves beyond our sights and grasp." He paused in thought. "Leave their letters maddeningly vague. I'd have them think the king is dissatisfied with them."

Riche regarded him in plain awe. "Does your mind ache from all the shuffling and coordinating you do every day, sir?"

"More of me aches than my mind," the secretary grumbled. "And let's bring some of the king's friends to pass judgment as well. In this difficult time, he needs every possible visual reinforcement of loyalty and love that flows for him."

"This process seems to be more about him than –" he stopped short as he realized the irony of what he was about to say: of course this transaction centered on the king. Who else? He backed out of that sentence and returned to his list. "Who else?"

"The Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Sussex."

"All right," Riche nodded, taking down the names.

"Rutland and Huntingdon, too. That should be enough."

Riche surveyed the names scrawled on his parchment. "Quite an assembly."

"The king's honour and truth deserves no less," Cromwell replied lightly.

"And will the queen be appointed defense counsel?"

Cromwell scoffed. "Can you imagine what man of the law would consent to that post? Grey's Inn would be as lifeless as a catacombe."

"So she'll have to fight the battle for her life, with no weapon?"

"As though she has no God-given weapons. Her wit and strength of mind surpass perhaps all of the men I've just named. To give her an attorney would serve no purpose other than to earn that man the scorn of all those who would see her convicted."

Riche nodded reluctantly. "Aye."

"And anyway," Cromwell continued as he rolled up his list and set it to one side, a pile of items finished, "you know and I know and everyone knows that it isn't a battle but a play. Our fight is not a real one but a devised pageant. The battle cries are scripted and…" he waved a hand. "The blades are made of clay."

"Except the one that will sever her head," Riche said, low; a growl.

To his surprise, Cromwell's lips parted but no words came forth. The secretary actually seemed at a loss for words and silence stretched for half a minute before Cromwell, clearing his throat and licking his lips with something approaching melancholy on his face, forced a teasing smirk. "We don't know that. Perhaps the king will want to have her burned."

Riche grimaced and stood. "Is that all for today, my lord?"

"For today, probably not. For now, yes." Cromwell leaned back in his chair and waved a hand dismissively.

iii.

Afternoon

"Edward!"

The sound boomed through the air. Edward Seymour's eyes shot up from his book and immediately connected with those of his wife, whose eyes had done precisely the same thing. Edward snapped his book closed and jolted to his feet, straightening his doublet and offering a hand to Anne Stanhope to haul her out of her chair quickly.

Anne squeezed his fingers, trying to be reassuring. Edward sucked in breath and started forward. "Majesty!"

Anne trotted after her husband as he left their small study, in these Seymour apartments, to meet the king who had come unannounced.

And as she had guessed, the king was breathless, laughing, dusty from travel. "I've just come from Wolf Hall," he announced even as Edward bowed and Anne sank into a curtsy beside him. "I spent the day yesterday and last night there, in the company of your siblings. I hope they – and you – will forgive the intrusion." Henry's face was lined with pleasure, his smile enveloping his whole visage. Joy radiated from him like heat.

Edward actually stammered, much to Anne's amusement. "My family is glad to host Your Majesty in any capacity, at any time," he recovered quickly.

Henry stepped forward. "I miss your sister with the strength of a thousand lions," he almost growled, a veritable pledge.

Unbeknownst to all, Edward's heart lurched a little and he almost smirked at himself for being such a fool. _So do I, but he means Jane._ "I am sure she feels the same."

"For the first time in my life, I am certain beyond all doubt that the woman I love shares and returns my feelings wholly," Henry plowed on. "Can you empathize with the force of that feeling?" The royal eyebrows strained upward as though Henry was a tutor quizzing his pupil, and Edward had better not answer incorrectly.

"I believe I can, my lord," Edward replied carefully, turning to search for his wife, whom he drew closer to his side.

"I want her closer to me."

Again, Edward hesitated. "Closer – physically, sire?"

"Yes." The king wiped a light sheen of sweat from above his upper lip and sniffed, his nose running from exertion. "I would have you bring her to London. I know I wanted her hidden away until –" he flinched at the next part of that sentence, _until my wife is dead_, "for the time being, but I cannot bear this separation. I must have her closer. I must be able to visit her – maintaining all propriety, that is," he added hastily. His eyes never left Edward Seymour's face. He looked like a man pleading leave.

Anne Stanhope watched her husband through lowered eyelashes. This was a great deal of information hitting Edward in the face at once: Henry had stolen away to visit Jane at Wolf Hall without informing Edward in the first place; he had stayed overnight in Edward's family home; and he wanted Edward to bring his sister back to London at least, if not to the palace, to abide while he hurried through the disposal of his current wife so he could wed Jane and make her queen without a wasted moment.

To Edward's credit, he processed the news, every layer of it, with astonishing speed. His well-fitted mind clicked like an abacus behind his wide brown eyes – Anne could almost see this – and he found his voice after only a short pause. "If Your Majesty feels that Jane's reputation will bear no slight in the act of bringing her closer to Your Majesty during this difficult time, I would be happy to ride to Wolf Hall and discuss this with her."

"I've sent word to Nicholas Carew to ready a wing of his house on the Strand," Henry rushed on, his tone anxious, his need to please and accommodate plainly visible on his face. "He would be honoured to host your entire family – or as many members as you see fit. I would not wish to upset Jane's peace by displacing her or separating her from her family." As he spoke, the king wrung his hands gestured with them, adamant in his vows.

"Your kindness will delight Jane, I have no doubt. Your respect for her has been her greatest source of joy."

Henry's eyes ticked to Anne Stanhope and then up at Edward. He inclined is head and Edward stepped away from his wife; Henry drew him into an alcove near a window. "I had a moment of weakness with your sister," the king confessed, barely a whisper, as soon as they were out of earshot. His eyes were lowered. "Jane came to see me… the details aren't important. She came alone, and I'm – Edward, I'm sorry to say that I may have betrayed my respect and my promise to never interact with her outside of audiences with your relatives. I'm only a man – a king notwithstanding," Henry apologized. "I did not expect such strength of passion. I…" he broke off.

Taking all this abjectness in, Edward swallowed and decided on a bold gamble, perhaps the boldest of his life. He exhaled angrily, and when Henry looked up, Edward met his eyes. "Your Majesty. Have you deflowered my sister?" The quiet tone of his voice was due to his own hesitation to speak thus to his king, but could as well have masked an undertone of anger and insult.

"No!" Henry cried, throwing up his hands in surrender. "No. No, no, Edward, you must believe me. I haven't –" he glanced over at Anne Stanhope, who had dutifully wandered to the opposite end of the chamber while never turning her back on her sovereign and now thumbed through an open book on a reading stand, eyes trained on the pages. "I haven't. Jane remains untouched. Well," he stopped himself, and Edward's heart lurched to see the King of England flushed pink from his neck to his temples, "not… entirely untouched. But she remains a true virgin, and I… I beg your forgiveness for betraying the trust between us. Sometimes – love is too strong a demand to resist entirely."

Edward took a long pause, nodding slowly while the king blinked rapidly, waiting for his response. "I see. I appreciate Your Majesty's willpower. I can understand the demands of love." Edward hoped that his voice betrayed none of his triumph.

The king heaved a relieved sigh. "I took my leave of Jane this morning on one knee, and she was so quiet and flushed that she wouldn't meet my eyes, and I feared she had lost some of her love for me."

"I am sure that is not true," Edward comforted his lord, daring again on a serious breach of protocol when he placed his hand on the shoulder of his future brother-in-law. "Jane is and always has been a timid and soft creature. She has never experienced passion, nor this kind of love. I venture that she must feel equally overwhelmed and enthralled. Her nature is silence; it is also obedience and reverence. Your Majesty must be patient with her."

Henry shook his head, eyes on the floor. "How God knows she's been patient with me," he whimpered. "The moment this is all past us, Edward, I will have my ring on Jane's finger. And your part, and your counsel in all this, it won't be overlooked."

"No thanks are necessary, Your Majesty." Edward stepped back and bowed. "Shall I ride for Wolf Hall this day, and bring Jane to the Strand on the morrow?"

"God, yes." The king ran a hand over his dusty face. "But don't tarry too long there; I shall need you close by as a representative of your family."

Edward bit his tongue savagely to keep from smirking at this praise. "Yes, sire."

Henry stepped back. "Many thanks for receiving me without notice." He paused, an ironic expression crossing his face, and shook his head. "You Seymours seem to be good at that. True country manners. I appreciate that." He turned toward Anne Stanhope. "Madam: forgive the intrusion." Anne Stanhope curtseyed again as Henry brought both palms to his lips and blew her a kiss, and was gone.

Within moments, Anne Stanhope and Edward Seymour stood a shoulder's width apart, facing each other, silent smiles playing at both their mouths. "It seems your hard work has paid off," she finally said.

"And your educating Jane," he replied. "She's no longer 'untouched.'"

Anne chuckled. "I didn't make her pretty and sweet, Edward."

He bowed his head, and one stray lock of hair fell against his cheek. "No. I must remember to thank her for that."

"So," she sighed. "You are leaving me again."

Edward looked up. "No."

"No?"

"You are coming with me," he informed her.

Anne raised one eyebrow. "Did the king not just …?"

"You can keep up with me, can you not?"

"I suppose so." She smiled her assent.

Edward put one hand on the small of her back and brought her against his chest. "You've got clothes at Wolf Hall – just change into a riding habit and we'll be on our way."

Even as she returned his kiss, Anne hesitated. "But won't I slow you down? It's the king's errand, not a holiday."

"Did you see the king, fidgeting and fretting like a child? He'll forgive this indulgence, if he even notices. Besides," Edward murmured against her ear. "I want to take you to my own bed. I want to watch the sunrise with you from my bedroom at home."

She smiled against his cheek. "I've never seen that before."

"Because you've always slept through it," he chided, chucking her under the chin as he pulled back.

"Is it beautiful?" Her lively eyes searched his.

Again, Edward steeled himself to portray nothing but devotion; no memories, no tremulation, no murmur that she'd have to ask someone else, because every time he was supposed to be watching the sun rise from his bedroom windows at Wolf Hall, he was watching the girl beside him, sleeping or awake, as the first drop of light splashed her perfect face and illuminated those few freckles on her nose. He tasted blood in his mouth from biting his tongue again.

iv.

"It really is laughable, this routine we've built," Madge Shelton said glumly.

Her sister Mary rolled her eyes. "We know you think so," she droned. "You've only said so a thousand times."

"What a gross overexaggeration," Madge mumbled.

Nan Saville sighed and pressed her hands together as if praying. "Madge. Mary. Please will yourselves against quarreling. It makes this situation so much harder for all of us." The pinched look she gave them seemed to say, _really, girls, behave like ladies._

All the ladies were, undoubtedly, sick to death of Nan's exhortations to hold themselves together, go about their duties, pretend as though all was well. In fact, all was clearly not well, and with each passing day, the queen's abandoned ladies-in-waiting felt the strain of their mistress's absence with all the greater impact. Their queen, their leader, their mistress was gone. They only had one another left, and to the chagrin of all the ladies, each had slowly begun to realize that Anne Boleyn had been the salve that had bonded them together. Her removal, her arrest, her impending death, threatened to tear them apart.

Bess Dormer glanced up, her auburn hair spilling over her back as she turned her head. "The situation is easy for none of us, in spite of the circumstances of the Sheltons' squabbles."

"No, of course not," Nan said evenly. "And of course it is difficult given that we are missing Lissie Seymour…"

"Who has not even sent a kind word by letter," Madge interrupted.

"What would you expect?" Bess whirled on her. "She's about to be the king's sister-in-law. She's a Seymour. Can you really think she would want any affiliation with anything to do with any of us? Anything related to Her Majesty? Worse – to have it in writing?"

"Lissie means no unkindness," Mary Shelton said, as if it were obvious. "She's only doing what she must, what her family bids. You know her brother rules the Seymours with an iron rod and a whip."

"Lissie's never been whipped in her life," Madge muttered.

Nan's brow furrowed. "Are you angry at Lissie? She can't help her birthright any more than you can. Fortune could as easily have landed upon you and yours, Madge."

"And once, it did," Mary added.

Madge reddened. "Shut your mouth or I'll have Uncle Norfolk box your ears," she growled.

Mary threw both hands up in consternation. "I said nothing untruthful or untoward!"

"Your intent was clear."

"Which is more than one can say about you, Madge," Bess said, eyes narrowed.

Madge's eyes welled with tears, a common sight over the past week. The arrest of Henry Norris had affected her in a deeper way than any of the ladies had at first realized, and Madge seemed angry and resentful of everyone around her. Nan bit her lip every time Madge interacted with someone other than the remaining ladies in waiting, lest the elder Shelton say something truly offensive and mar her reputation or that of the whole group. "I'm saying it isn't fair," she croaked, nose turning red.

All that she could do was reach for Madge's hand, so Nan did. The soft skin of Anne Boleyn's cousin belied the truth, which was that Madge had never been whipped either. The damage to Madge's standing in the world was no doubt difficult to bear, but Nan could not help but think that Madge was being a little dramatic. She was a distant enough relation that her reputation would not be ruined along with that of the queen's family, and certainly a suitable replacement for Henry Norris could be found. Perhaps he would even be young and gallant, which Henry Norris had not been – at least, Nan thought, not in his behaviour toward Madge. He had stalled and put off the wedding for above two years, citing this reason or that obstacle for why he could not yet wed her, while he continued to flirt with the queen in Madge's presence and, it was rumoured, carry on a handful of lustful affairs. Discreetly, but nonetheless.

On the other hand, Anne Boleyn had watched her husband flirt with any number of ladies at the court, ladies who had been born higher than she, foreign ladies, low-born knights' daughters. He had carried on his affairs in private, but with no great regard for concealing them from her. He had shouted at and humiliated her, abandoned her emotionally, and blamed her for the loss of the children she had so desperately wished to give him. And by all appearances, he had apparently struck her, given that day that she had returned from an audience with him bleeding and with her eyes on the floor. Now she sat imprisoned in the Tower of London, awaiting one last humiliation – a public trial where her fictitious and ridiculous "affairs" would be detailed before anyone who cared to attend, and where, despite her defense, she would be convicted – and finally, her ultimate fate: public execution for having committed no other sin than earning her husband's boredom and failing to bear him a boy.

"No, it isn't fair," was all Nan could manage.

"We will be fine, sister." Mary Shelton reached for Madge's other hand.

Madge glared at her. "You will. You are nineteen years, pretty and charming."

Nan's eyes met Mary's, and both sighed inwardly.

Bess Dormer did not appear to have been listening and had spent most of the afternoon gazing out a window, which seemed to be her new favourite pastime. Now she licked her lips. "I disagree with you about Lissie Seymour never having been whipped," she said lightly. The other three ladies turned to look at her at once, resembling a cote of doves in the ivory day dresses that they were all required to wear, which they had continued to do in spite of their mistress' absence. Every head of hair was coiffed perfectly and finished with the customary French hood, which, they had all agreed, would no longer be the style when Jane Seymour became queen.

"I beg your pardon?" Nan asked, not understanding what Bess was saying.

"Perhaps not truly whipped – but Lissie's standing is no more certain than any of ours, or anyone else's."

"Her position now outstrips ours," Madge contended.

Bess smiled, allowing the point. "But would you trade that benefit – family member of a Queen of England – for living under rule of Edward Seymour? For living according to the favour of king and court?"

No one readily assented. Her meaning was clear: Lissie and her family may be on the ascent, and Jane Seymour may be the next matriarch of the English family, mother of the next heir. But maybe she wouldn't, and maybe she would fail, and maybe the king would grow tired of her.

And maybe she would grow tired of him, of being cuckolded in public and blamed for any little thing that irritated the king after he stopped worshipping and revering her. And maybe she would not succeed as queen, maybe her saintly bearing would mean less and less as time went on, and maybe, just maybe, underneath all that she was something other than the cherub she presented to the world. And maybe Lissie should be ruling the Seymours, for maybe she was the brightest in the family, for she had not immediately jumped to her sister's cause and abandoned the queen whose struggles she had witnessed. And maybe these four ladies would be sitting – no longer the queen's household, but just as ladies bound together by common tragedy and experience, and a kinship born thereof – around a table like this in a few years, discussing the sad, sad descent of the Seymour family, and lamenting that poor Lissie Seymour, their friend from another life, had been a lamb that her family led to slaughter.

v.

Late Evening

His wife was slumped in the saddle when they finally turned off the road and made their way up the hill to the plateau where Wolf Hall stood; Edward summoned the last of his strength to jump down from his stallion and catch Anne in his arms as she slid from her seat.

"I regret my declaration that I could keep up with you," she teased in a sleepy murmur.

Edward chuckled. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. Let's get you upstairs. Bath?"

"In the morning," she insisted.

Wolf Hall was dimly lit, and Edward didn't want to awaken the entire household. He draped one arm over Anne's shoulders as they slid inside. Anne turned her head and stifled a yawn against his forearm.

Although he had intended to take her straight upstairs, Edward's eye caught a glowing light pouring out from the downstairs chamber. Anne hanging on his arm, he made his way over and peered in.

Jane's brown eyes found his first, and she beamed at him over Tom's shoulder. When his brother turned, Edward saw a sheaf of cards in the hand of each. Jane carefully placed hers on the table and rose. "Edward!" she exclaimed, crossing the floor. "Anne, how are you? Did you just arrive? It's so late."

"Oh," Anne groaned, "I am painfully aware."

"The king sent me," Edward began to say, but Jane put one hand on either side of his face and pressed her lips to his in a chaste kiss hello. His brow furrowed. She never greeted him like that.

Jane pulled back, her smile steady and careful. "Did he?" she replied primly.

"I shall tell you," he continued. "Sweetheart, shall I take you upstairs?"

"I can find my way," Anne told him, leaning up to kiss his cheek, oblivious to his conversation with Jane.

"Shall I fetch a maid?" asked Tom, coming to stand behind Jane.

Anne smiled. "No, no, I'll manage. I'll have a bath in the morning; I can hardly keep my eyes open. Stay and tell your sister the news." She patted Edward's arm and bid all three siblings farewell.

Jane watched her go, and then her eyes slid back to Edward's face. "Lissie's in bed," she informed him.

He nodded once, acknowledging the information. "The king sent me," he started again. "He wants you to move at once to Nicholas Carew's house on the Strand. We're all to pack and go tomorrow. He wants you nearer – but begs your forgiveness for whatever it is that passed between the two of you last night."

Jane blushed deeply, the same way the king had. "His forgiveness is what that event requires, not mine," she responded.

"That's a story for tomorrow – you must tell him about the whole day," Tom interjected, tapping Jane's shoulder.

Edward exchanged a grin with Tom. "That I cannot wait to hear."

"It doesn't disappoint, brother, I promise you." Tom winked over Jane's shoulder.

"I think we managed fairly well enough without you," Jane agreed. "All things considered."

He reached for both her hands and squeezed them. "I have every faith. And I would love to hear it over breakfast tomorrow, so the three of you can narrate the whole thing." He glanced around suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him. "Why are you not upstairs?"

"It's freezing up there," Jane said mournfully. "There's a draft somewhere – we couldn't find it. Matilda is going to get someone in to fix it this week. The nights are cold enough as it is, so we came down here and…" she gestured behind her at the well-built fire beside which she and Tom had huddled, playing cards at a gilded table instead of reclining in mismatched chairs with the quilts upstairs, which they'd used since as long as any f them could remember. The scene looked less like the country Seymour family at leisure than it did a queen-in-waiting and her brother, which, Edward realized, it was.

"Well, you'll be well-warmed at Carew's, I'm sure. You'll have to pack in the morning; we need to be on the way no later than noon."

"I will be ready," Jane promised, her voice quiet but steady. "You mustn't doubt it."

"I don't." He squeezed her hand again and released it, nodding at Tom. "Finish your game. I'm for bed."

"Goodnight," Tom and Jane chorused as Edward made his way to the stairs.

vi.

The night was young, but Thomas Cromwell had never felt older. He slumped back in his chair, trying to will his hands to their work, but they would not oblige him. He found that he was exhausted beyond the ability to think clearly when it came to anything other than the mounting weight and terror of the events that stretched before him.

He would not say he was experiencing regret, but only because it was impossible to regret something that had not yet happened. Only because he knew that she still breathed, still moved, that her eyes still blinked and slept and cried.

On several occasions over the past few days – when he had read the notes that Henry had sent where he had announced his impromptu flight to visit Jane Seymour, for example, or afterward, to announce that his new love would be moved to Carew's house on the river – Cromwell had wondered what life might have been like if he had been another man. A different man; maybe even an honourable man. He might have had a life of simplicity. He might have had less difficult choices to make, such as which tutors to hire for his children and whether he and his wife should move from London to a quiet shire, than the ones that he had had to make lately. He would have made decisions that affected others in serious ways, but not decisions that had occasioned their deaths. Well, at least, not as many of the latter as he was making recently.

He was not destined for that, he reminded himself. God had had other plans for him. This was his fate and he should not challenge it.

Perhaps, Cromwell thought as he clenched his fists so hard that his joints ached, closing his eyes against the soft glow of the candles Mrs. Lockton had lit so he could do his work, God had chosen him for this fate because He had determined Cromwell was made of the proper stuff to handle it.

In that case, it seemed that God had quite possibly made a mistake.

Lately, Cromwell had been imagining what life would have been like had Anne been his wife. The utter selfishness and idiocy of these fantasies washed over him afresh with each new musing, but he could not stop them. Or so he told himself. In reality, he did not want to.

Eyes closed, head resting on the top of his chair, Cromwell indulged himself as he had been doing far too frequently. He imagined waking up to her every morning, her hair less perfectly coiffed than he was used to seeing it at court, in simple clothing in a simple bed with simple blankets and the sound of children's feet downstairs. What it would be like to kiss those lips good morning, awake her with the warmth of his body against hers. To see her wide blue eyes clouded with sleep, rather than fear, rather than disorientation, smiling back at him.

Their children, he thought, would be perfect. They would share the raven-dark hair of both parents, curly and unruly. And large, beautiful eyes of blue or green. He hoped they would get her looks, her dimples, her long graceful bearing. They would have the strong jaws and high cheekbones that he and Anne had in common. And they would be bright, God knew. And passionate. And ambitious.

And ultimately, this image was hazy and difficult to focus because he and Anne were both far too ambitious themselves to be contented with such a quiet life, but – God help him – it was such a beautiful picture. Perhaps if things had been different, something like this could have been their reality, his reality.

_This is all Lissie Seymour's fault, _Cromwell thought, chuckling even as one lone tear snaked out of his eye, which he wiped away at once. If she had not filled his head with that ridiculous picture of nuptial bliss, the image would not have stuck with him.

But she had, and it had, and now here he sat, heart aching a little more with each foray into the impossible. He imagined something that he thought might be closer to plausibility: himself as some minor lord, or even a major lord, and Anne as his Lady, his Baroness, his Duchess. Festooned in the finest fashion – for that part of the dream certainly did fit – and leaving envy and intimidation in her wake at every trip to court. He wondered what it would have been like if they had danced that saltarello and they had not been afraid to let their palms touch, nor to admit that their hands knew each other, nor to be angry and frustrated when each of them anticipated the step of the other. He wondered what it would feel like to spend a night in bed with her naked; to hold her hand as she birthed their child. And he would not care if it was a boy or a girl.

And then there was that last, most delicious, and most alarmingly feasible fantasy. That would be the one where Cromwell, right now, planted his feet on the floor of his office, pushed back his chair, and dragged himself to standing. Where he pulled on a cloak left his rooms without looking back, and hailed a barge up the Thames, stole up a side stairwell – and he could picture the right one in his mind – and into the fortress, unseen in the mist. Where he traversed the maze of corridors to avoid Kingston's men, gained admittance to the royal prisoner's apartments with nothing more than a lifting of his cap so that the guards could see his face, and tiptoed past her sleeping ladies-in-waiting. Where he leant over Anne in bed, eased her awake, ordered her to dress warmly and not ask him where they were going. Where he disappeared with her down a different stairwell and towed her through the darkness until they reached the river house of one of his friends, a Hanseatic merchant who would let them huddle underneath the floorboards of his fastest vessel. Where their absence would not be noticed until morning, and it would be too late because they had vanished without a single trace, left no knowledgeable witnesses, and long since docked in Calais, too quick for a locking down of all ports. Where they were already halfway across the Continent with no hope of being caught because the only man who could organize a search thorough and fast enough to catch them would be Thomas Cromwell himself. Where he could make this all come true, and they would change their names, marry, and live in joy.

He could almost feel her hand in his.

Almost.

He stretched out his palm, a desperate smile trying to envelop his quivering lips, closed eyes spilling over with tears. His tongue flicked in the way it would when he said her name, waking her in the Tower, waking her every day for the rest of their natural lives: _Anne._

But a force reached out and tugged at that traveling cloak he had slung about his shoulders and pulled him back from the East, from Budapest, from Cleves, from Sorrento. It tugged him back, reluctantly, through the pale of Calais, and onto the hull of the boat of his Hanseatic friend. It turned the tide and brought them back to England, where they retraced their steps and found themselves in the sleeping Tower, where Anne took off her warm layers and laid back in bed, in reverse, meeting his eyes and quietly asking, "Are you sure, Thomas Cromwell?", before she slid her hand out of his, and he backed silently out of her prison, nodding goodbye to the guards and descending the secret staircase that had brought him to her. And the force compelled him back into the royal barge and up the landing at Greenwich and back here, to this office, to this desk. And it sat him down in this chair and patted his open palm and curled it back into a fist, because they were not running away but staying exactly where they were. Because that was his choice.

This force was him, was himself, Thomas Cromwell. For he had come to the painful and uncontainable realization that he was not made of the proper stuff to change what was happening to her, to him; to stop what was coming. He had all the power, all the ability, and none of the honour. None of the nerve. For God had not made him to be a hero. God had made him to be a loyal servant to his prince and an object of hatred for all other loyal servants to his prince. Was that not ironic?

God had not made him to be a lover, a husband, a saviour. God had made him to be what he was: a pragmatist, a crook, a coward. A murderer. A demon.

He had thought, before, when he had wondered if Henry would have poisoned Anne, that she would forgive him. He had thought that something so simple as holding her hand, maybe intertwining their fingers, would have gained him her grace. Now he knew it mattered not at all if she would grant him her forgiveness, for he would never, ever forgive himself.

And when Riche looked at him the way he always did, that look that said, _I am your dutiful servant, my lord, but beneath my skin thumps a tide of aversion to you, all you are, all you've done, and all you stand for,_ the secretary wanted to take the dagger off the pouch he kept at his waist and stab himself with it. But even if he did, Cromwell had the suspicion that no one would hold him and weep as he slipped through their fingers. No raven would come to his aid to cradle his shoulders and breathe air past his lips as he bled to death. Anne was not the serpent. He was.

vii.

Elizabeth woke from a fitful dream, in the shallowest stages of sleep at that, to a warm weight pressing over the length of her body. She tensed and started into consciousness at once, almost letting out a yelp. A pair of lips was on her ear, and a hand cupped one side of her face, while a voice that she couldn't place but somehow recognized was soothing her: "Shhhh."

She exhaled, released from panic. "Hello," she whispered at last.

"Hello," Edward replied.

"Why…"

"The king sent me."

She finally opened her eyes to see that the room was entirely dark; he had shut the door behind him, locking himself in with her. "For what?"

"We're all relocating tomorrow. To a house on the Strand."

Lissie just nodded. "He was here last night – but I'm sure you know that."

"By that, I assume you mean here in this house, not _here,_" Edward teased, but even his chuckle had a hard edge to it.

"Edward," she complained. He kissed her cheek. "Jane nearly went to his bed."

"So I've heard. I cannot wait to hear the full story of that escapade."

She chuckled again. "And afterward, she came here and got into bed with me – and then Tom. The three of us, can you imagine?"

Edward smiled down at her, propped on his elbows, still lying directly on top of her, his weight forcing her down into the bed. "Oh, the scandal."

"And tonight, you. What would the king say if he knew all my siblings were in my bed within one day?"

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind being in your bed, either, Elizabeth."

He saw the movement of her eyes as they looked over his face. "And, now, I shall shush you: shhhhh."

"There is one certain way to shush me," Edward growled, and put his lips to hers.

Lissie tilted her head just in time; as always, they took turns being careful. Edward's mouth found the expanse of her throat, her exposed neck, her vulnerable jugular. The kiss was soft and he felt her heartbeat turn erratic under his lips.

Lissie gave a short sigh, clearly an effort to control her breathing, and said through clenched teeth: "You should leave."

Edward pulled away. "Indeed – I've brought Anne with me."

"She waits for you in bed, and you tarry here?"

"She's asleep by now, I'm sure. We rode straight from London."

Lissie narrowed her eyes. "Exhausted from a day's ride, and you came to say, what? Hello?"

"You said hello first," he reminded her. "And yes. I had to see my sister."

"And now you must go to bed with your wife. And you must have the sweetest of dreams beside her, and smile at her as you wake up in the morning. And watch the sunrise together."

Edward smiled, a little confused at her mock orders. But then, Lissie was flighty when tired, always had been. "If that is your wish, my sister."

"It is my command."

Edward propped his chin on one fist – the same way Lissie always did, she noted – and slid his hand over her mattress to find the small bump that was her own hand. He pressed his palm against what he perceived to be hers. "Then I will have to obey."

Lissie closed her eyes and smiled. "Indeed – and I rather like you this way."

He chuckled as he eased off of her and leant over the bed. "I cannot disagree – I like myself better this way, too."

"I shall see you in the morning?" Lissie unearthed one hand from her blankets and held it up to him, fingers splayed. Edward met her palm with his and laced their fingers, giving her a squeeze goodnight.

"Of course. Sleep well."

He had barely reached the foot of her bed before her voice called him back, urgency in her tone. "Edward."

He turned. "Liss?"

And she hesitated again. "Have you heard any word of the queen?"

Edward stiffened. "The only queen you should be concerned with is your sister. Goodnight."

He expected her to retort, but as he left the room, it was silent save for the hiss of linen against linen as Lissie adjusted in bed. He pulled the door shut with both hands and made for his bedroom, where he paused for a moment with one last glance back toward his sister's room.

His wife was asleep, stripped naked, with a clean nightshift covering her body, as though she had meant to wait up for him but failed. Edward's eyes raked over her, mahogany waves spread on the pillow, a smudge of dirt on her neck that she had apparently missed while washing up for bed. Before he knew what he was doing, Edward was shucking his clothing, riding boots and doublet simultaneously, breeches and hose landing on top. He yanked the neck of his shirt open and pulled it over his head, unable to tear his eyes from the delicious sight of Anne, waiting for him, wanting him.

She barely stirred as he climbed on top of her, resting the length of his body against hers, tugging the nightshift from between them so that they pressed together skin to skin. He put his lips to hers and she didn't tilt her head but returned his kiss, awakening with a moan of pleasure and a gasp of surprise as he urged her legs apart.

"I fell asleep," she murmured into his mouth, spreading her thighs and wrapping them around him.

"I hope you don't mind my waking you," he replied, pushing into her, smiling as her fingertips bit into the muscles of his back and then relaxed.

"Like this?" she asked breathlessly. "What woman could mind this?"

Edward didn't answer, just put his lips to hers and kissed her mouth over and over, eyes closed, until she tightened her legs around him and shuddered her release. Her climax pushed him over the edge and he collapsed against her, pulling the nightshift to blanket them both as they drifted off together, with the full knowledge that the chilly night would wake them and force them to get under the quilts within the hour. He promised himself he would wake to watch the sunrise with Anne, as Lissie had ordered him.

**A/N: As always, please review. It is greatly appreciated. =)**


	35. Chapter 35

**A/N: Here we are with our next chapter! It isn't my favorite one ever, but we are building up to several explosive events so I guess some slower-paced sections are acceptable for now. Please let me know what you think =) My goal is to have the next one up by 27 October.**

**Le Creationist, I am so pleased you enjoyed my Cromwell section. I'm enjoying exploring the depths of his guilt and self-reflection. And many, many thanks for the compliments on my writing. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. Since you asked directly, I will answer your question (SPOILER ALERT): No, it is not too late for another meaningful Cromwell/Anne interaction. So please stay with me!**

**Rae, how is your year going? I hope you're enjoying it =D As for being an adult and "paying for things," I actually really enjoy being financially independent. I have been so for about 7 years now (I am 24) and it is quite rewarding to know I rely on no one else. It isn't always the most fun – definitely was not fun during college at my expensive private school full of rich kids – and of course sometimes I'm like, "can't I just meet a rich guy, or…?" but at the end of the day there's something great to it, so don't fear! As for casting, Natalie Dormer was perfection for the type of Anne that The Tudors wanted, I agree; and she's who I envision playing Anne in my story, although it's a different and deeper characterization. But I think she would be perfect opposite Frain in this plot. The Seymours are developing nicely, I think, and I can't seem to get off Lissie/Edward – and I'm getting sick of Lissie having to be the strong one so they'll probably be having a falling-out again pretty soon – we'll see what happens with that. (I honestly don't know LOL but I sense a lot of ups and downs in their relationship, before and after the time of this story.) I like Anne Stanhope too! IDK where her plot is going to go either. These things honestly just come to me as I'm writing usually. Lissie/Edward was not planned but it just happened so naturally. One of the reviewers was actually like "I saw the incest coming" and I was like NO WAY really?! #awkward … I also like making Tom Seymour the sorta off-the-cuff comic relief one; I wish I had more time/space to develop him but I already have like 82945309 plotlines going and it's exhausting mentally so… sorry Tom! Yes, you're right, Percy was on the jury that convicted Anne; and as for Norfolk, I deal with that in this chapter so I hope you enjoy that section! I have to get this posted so I can go to sleep! How's the Borgias going?**

i.

13 May

Midday

The queen was, or looked to be, something approaching her former self today. She was fully and severely dressed shortly after dawn, ate no breakfast, and sat down to a writing table with a stack of clean, unused parchment that was hers for the inscribing. Her maids faded away, not just out of her bedchamber but from existence. They disappeared from her world like water absorbs into the dry earth.

Anne was working on her strategy for the trial; her trial, as it were. She was not working on a defense strategy, as that would be wasted time and her moments of breathing mortal life were now precious few.

There was no doubt of the legal outcome of the trial, of course. Her summary conviction was such a foregone conclusion that at this juncture, Anne had truly not even paused to give it a second thought. Her entire scheme for the trial concerned the preservation of any shred of respect or defense that she might be able to channel into a lasting source of steadiness for herself. And a salve against a violent breakdown which she'd been staving off, which might well mean a more physically painful death for herself, harsher treatment for the others, and retaliation against the family members that would survive her – and most of all, her little Elizabeth.

She must pull herself together before she left for the court, she knew. She's have to let herself sob the previous day and then retire to bed for the afternoon and night. She'd been spending an unacceptable amount of time in bed lately: she found herself fatigued and in need of sleep at least a third of the day, and she'd taken to falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon when she'd eaten a small supper. She supposed she ought to be understanding with herself, given the circumstances.

Anne glanced down at her slate gray dress. She'd have to wear black to the trial, she decided, and noted on the page. She no longer trusted herself to remember such details; in the face of one's world crumbling – no, crashing – to dust, fashion and charm were the first frivolities to fall away.

She must deny any allegations of adultery with the men accused with her. She must deny any guilt of the charges laid against her. Yet Anne found herself leery of making sweeping allegations of her own innocence, of her fidelity and love of her husband. For, clearly, she was not innocent of adultery. Clearly she was not guilty of fidelity. Clearly, though it pained her to admit it, she could not in good conscience claim love. Not for herself, not for Henry, not for her family - not for anyone, really, other than Elizabeth.

It had occurred to her some time before, all the days in this stone prison running together and their realizations and introspections blurring into one haze of soulless mist, that Elizabeth would never know her. Her daughter wouldn't remember her face or their time together. If Anne was lucky, someone close to her daughter might someday tell her that Anne had adored and doted on her; but after conviction of multiple extramarital affairs and incest, and after execution for the same, Anne knew that the legacy she left to her daughter would not be one of a devoted mother. She could only pray that some kind soul would see to it that Elizabeth knew - what? The truth? No, not the truth. But perhaps a kinder version of it, perhaps a version of events that would not make her ashamed of her mother. It was not that she wanted Elizabeth to be deceived. She just thought that her perfect daughter, her one great accomplishment and joy, deserved better than a manufactured memory of her mother the whore.

Anne waited for the tears, but it seemed she had none left for today. She'd gone through this cycle countless times already: she'd swear she had no weeping left in her, that she was not capable of sobbing ever again. And then a fresh wave of emotion would break over her and she'd find herself facedown in her pillows, or with her head in her hands at her desk, or curled into a ball in her window seat, her tears dripping down the window pane, a rainstorm of grief and guilt and regret. But not yet, apparently.

She would have to prepare herself to speak honourably about Henry, and that would likely take the most strength. That would take the most discipline. Anne found herself surprised at how little time she'd spent thinking of her husband since she'd been imprisoned. It was almost as though she considered them long-since separated, which in some sense, they were. She remembered the warm, passionate Henry, who could make her laugh and who stimulated her mind. But he'd vanished years ago; she could finally admit that to herself. Whether it was her fault or his that he had changed was of no consequence and not worth wondering now.

Of course, she'd changed, too. She was ten years older now than she had been when she'd first attracted him, when she'd been beautiful, young, full of romantic dreams and empty of scorn or begrudgements. She'd thought herself quite worldly and wise then. She smiled to herself. Was that not the delusion of youth?

But over the years she had become hard, defensive, and taut. It felt like a lifetime that she had waited; waited for Henry; waited for marriage; waited for stability. Henry, of course, had waited for her too. It wasn't that she felt she had suffered alone or waited alone, but their waiting had been different. He had been married, had a child, had a circle of loyal friends who could find no fault with him so they turned their derision on the woman he loved instead. It was easier to blame Anne than their sovereign. And, it was impossible to blame Henry. It was not politically possible.

They'd both waited, staving off lust for above six years, while Henry grew more rageful and Anne lost the best physical years of her life. Her curves, never much to speak of, had fallen away to anxiety and the constant swinging pendulum of hope, joy, disappointment, despair. Her face had sunk slightly against itself and she'd even lost a little of her previous height.

Anne had shouted at Henry in the garden that day, the day before Brandon and Riche had come for her, that she had loved him - and that she loved him still. But as she looked back at her past, really looked back, and remembered both the good and the bad, she wondered if the latter declaration had been true. But she would not waste her living moments in the retracing of her marriage, she promised herself. She would not give Henry that triumph. For certain, he would have almost every other triumph over her before all was done with.

ii.

"A note from the queen," Riche almost whispered. He laid it carefully on Cromwell's desk and stepped back as though ready to bow at it.

The secretary's eyes twitched between his colleague and the missive, which looked small and unimposing. "Any idea what it says?"

Riche shook his head. Neither man moved. At length Riche cleared his throat. "Master Kingston gave it to me," he added, uselessly.

Cromwell hid a roll of the eyes. "For God's sake," he muttered finally. Plucking up the parchment, he tried to hide the care with which he unfolded it and split the seal. He could almost feel Anne's fingertips on it. He could almost smell the rosewater. He turned the page over and found, in a script that seemed less formal and perfect than what he would have imagined, a short, impersonal note. He could almost hear her voice addressing him:

_Master Secretary,_

_I write on this day, the 13__th__ May, to ask you to confirm whether legal defense will be appointed me in the upcoming examination. Your prompt response is appreciated already._

_Anne the Queen_

Riche was watching him, a look of muted frenzy in his eyes. "What does she say?" he hissed. They were still speaking in hushed tones, as though the letter bore some intimacy, some cherished secret.

"She wants to know whether I will appoint her counsel."

"And you're still decided against?"

Cromwell guffawed. "Her request changes nothing."

Riche paused in thought. "Have you discussed any of this with His Majesty?"

Looking up sharply, Cromwell licked his lips. "The king has entrusted me with the task of bringing this entire affair to conclusion. He has requested that he be involved as little as possible. You will understand why I would not trouble him with something so trivial as the defendants' legal representation."

"Just a question." The solicitor-general held up a hand.

Cromwell was already reaching for parchment, finding a small piece to match the note she had sent him. "You'll carry my response straight back to Kingston," he spoke in a normal tone. "We won't keep her waiting."

Riche nodded as Cromwell dipped his pen and flattened the paper under his palm.

_Madam,_

_It is my hope that this note finds you in good health. Regretfully, legal defense will not be provided on this occasion._

Cromwell paused at the conclusion, wondering how to sign his name. He tried to picture her receiving his response, tried to conjure a realistic image of her in the Tower, but all he could see in his mind's eye was her hand in his hand as they, in his fantasy, fled from England into the night. And how he had brought her back, the entire dream moving in reverse, and seen her back into her bed, her hand in his, with her asking him if he was sure before he backed away from her.

And so he signed the parchment, simply, _Thomas Cromwell._

Riche plucked the folded note from where it perched between Cromwell's index and middle finger like a little flag. "Should I await a response from her, or…?" Riche shook his head and gestured with his free hand as if to say, _I still don't know how to comport myself here._

"I doubt she would have one. Just deliver it to the warden and then come back here." His colleague bowed and left the office.

After he departed, Cromwell sat for some minutes with Anne's note open on his desk. He tried to find some hidden meaning betwixt the words, with the full knowledge that there was none. He traced his fingers over the ink, wishing some of it would smear onto his skin, but it didn't. He looked at her signature, wondering if she had puzzled over it as he had his. _Anne the Queen._ There was no flourish to the words, no tails or spirals or fanciful wings on the letters as there had been in years past. It was as though the title had become a burden, a fate and a circumstance to be accepted rather than the highest womanly honour in the land. It was as though she detested her position as much as he did his. And hers.

iii.

Afternoon

Elizabeth tipped her head back in silence, the wide brim of her riding hat shielding her eyes from the late afternoon sun as she took in Nicholas Carew's house. Her eyes were wide. Her lips parted in awe.

Tom drew his horse up next to hers. "Magnificent."

Lissie glanced over at him. "Words fail me."

He helped her down from her horse and turned to assist Jane, who had come up behind them. "Good Lord," the elder Seymour sister murmured.

Tom chuckled: "The Lord is good, indeed."

"Not terrible, for a queen-in-waiting." Edward grinned as he helped his wife dismount. Anne Stanhope smiled in spite of the fatigue that showed upon her face: long rides on two consecutive days were enough to tire any lady.

"It's beautiful," she concurred. "Jane, do you like it?"

"How could I not?" Jane's dimples belied her excitement. "I can see why His Majesty would have wanted us to stay here; it boasts every comfort."

One of the heavy front doors to the house opened, and Sir Nicholas glided out, cheeks dimpled the same as Jane's. It was less endearing on a man's face, but his pleasure could likewise not be denied.

"My lords! My ladies!" Sir Nicholas bounded down the front stairs and reached the small courtyard where the Seymours awaited him; three pink-cheeked women and two swaggering men, five idle horses and a good-sized litter packed to bursting with luggage. Edward had tried to insist that Jane should ride in the litter, as the first lady of the family, but the latter had shaken her head with a bemused expression and declared herself perfectly capable of riding along with everyone else. In the family's hasty flight from Wolf Hall, packing negotiations had been undertaken with furious speed and many shouted conversations between the ladies:

_May I share your stockings if I let you share my sleeves?_

_How many chemises are you bringing?_

_D'you think just one warm cloak will do, given that it's the middle part of May? -Well, we will be right on the river. Perhaps two._

At length Edward, with what looked to be a pounding headache if his massaging of his forehead was any indication, had thrown up his hands and reminded his sisters and his wife that they were moving on the king's orders, not in order to take a sumptuous holiday, and they could always send someone back after additional wardrobe pretties if necessity dictated.

"Welcome," Carew said simply, sweeping a grandiose bow, arms flung wide.

"Sir Nicholas," Jane replied first, and with a luxurious flow of warmth like scented bathwater in her voice, stepped forward, both hands extended to clasp his. "I beg your forgiveness at our appearances. We so appreciate your hospitality."

"It is my pleasure and mine alone, my lady." Carew planted a gentle kiss on the back of each of Jane's hands. "You and your family are most welcome here." He stepped forward to shake Edward's hand. "Sir. You are to be commended for your great and timely service to the king. He and I only spoke yesterday about your family visiting, and you were at court. Now you've journeyed home and here all of you stand!"

"Not without fatigue," Tom interjected good-naturedly, glancing at Lissie who stood silent next to him. Anne Stanhope leant on her husband's opposite arm.

"Indeed. I think the ladies could do with some rest." Edward looked around. "What a beautiful home you have, Nicholas."

"Let's get everyone inside and after you've all had some respite, I would be pleased to show you the grounds."

"What a delight," Jane agreed with that same bubbly warmth in her tone. Carew's pages appeared as if from nowhere and began unloading the litter, taking each piece of luggage to the room that had been assigned by Carew in advance. The Seymour family followed the master of the house into the abundantly grand foyer, up a broad winding staircase and into these various rooms and suites.

"My Elizabeth, you see, is at our home in Surrey. She usually spends the spring here, no matter where _I_ am –" he nodded at Edward as if to say, _wives, yes?_ " –but it's been so cold and she's a delicate thing. Yesterday I sent word of your most esteemed visit and I'm sure she'll be here forthwith."

Nicholas Carew, in spite of his high-spirited and sometimes dangerously boisterous behaviour over the years, had never been known to keep a mistress. His wife, his Elizabeth, remained the apple of his eye twenty-two years after their wedding. Lissie looked forward to watching their interaction, which she had heard was most amusing, the wasplike Lady Carew batting her pretty eyelashes and managing her husband without any noticeable effort.

"I look forward to meeting her," Jane said. "I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure."

"And I hope it will be a great pleasure for you, my lady," Sir Nicholas nodded graciously. Lissie watched as Jane maintained a rigid, drawn-up posture, clearly practicing for her forthcoming queenship. Tom caught her eye and wiggled his eyebrows, and Lissie smiled back even as she turned away, trying to stifle a yawn.

But if she had hoped to revive herself through a short rest, she was to be disappointed. Her bed was comfortable, and her room was beautiful, but for Elizabeth Seymour there was to be no sleep this afternoon. Instead she rolled from where she lay on top of the coverings and stretched her arms above her head before pulling on a cloak – the sun was setting – and tiptoeing down the stairs.

Miraculously she met no one as she wandered about on the first floor of the house, seeking the opposite side from where she and her family had entered, and she was rewarded when she found a set of gilded glass doors that led outside to the river landing. Lissie slipped through the door and tugged her cloak closed as a chilly breeze blew back her hair, only half-plaited on the top after the long ride. The garden that separated the long stretch between river and house was, of course, well-maintained and cleverly laid out, tall shrubs alternating with elaborate displays of flowers in a formation that stretched along the water for a distance twice as long as the house, which was unbelievably long itself. Lissie strained but could not see any houses of the Carews' neighbours. She wandered down to the opposite side of the garden, just beyond the last row of shrubs tall enough that she could conceal herself behind them, and took in the rolling lawn that led down to a short bank of sand and Sir Nicholas' private dock. When she turned back to the path, thinking to stroll its unknown length if she had enough daylight left, Lissie was startled to see her eldest brother facing her from halfway down the row. He seemed as surprised to see her as she was him, and raised a hand in greeting. Lissie sighed and made her way toward him. Edward waited for her, turning his mouth upward for a quick smile as she reached him.

"Quite a garden," she offered.

Edward chuckled. "Yes. Quite."

They walked along in silence for a minute before Lissie asked, "How long d'you think we'll be here?"

"Until they dispose of her. The king won't waste a moment after that."

A chill stole up Lissie's spine, daringly. "Does that seem distasteful to you?"

Edward paused. "It's better not to think of it in terms of taste. Taste is… personal. It's individual. I think it's better," he squinted into the setting sun, deliberately keeping his eyes trained forward even as his sister craned her neck up to look at him, "to remember that the king's will is what it is, and as his subjects we are here to act accordingly."

Lissie turned to look at the sun, too, and nodded slowly. "So you do think it's distasteful."

He sighed through his nose, almost laughing, almost angry, but wholly familiar with her persistence. "Yes, I do."

"Good. I merely wanted to be sure I wasn't alone."

"Never." He unfolded one hand from where he had clasped them behind his back and offered it out to her. She shook her head and he withdrew it, knotting it again with the other.

"Do you ever worry that Jane will fail as Anne has failed?" Her voice was quiet, tremulous; if it had been anything else, the question would have enraged Edward.

"We just have to pray that she won't."

Now it was Lissie's turn to snort. "All right, then." She forced on a smile. "I suppose we'll soon be fending off propositions of marriages for Tom and me?"

Edward smirked too. "Tom won't marry," he said confidently. "I'd like to have him do so, but he's impetuous and he won't do as told."

Lissie trailed to a stop. "And will I?"

"Do as you're told?" Edward stopped, too, and turned to face her, a few paces beyond.

"Marry." She held up a hand to shield her eyes.

His eyes were downcast, and they flickered up. "Would you like to?"

"I would not have thought that would matter."

"Of course it does," he replied, a little guiltily. "You cared for Anthony, didn't you?"

In the shade of her palm, Lissie's eyeroll was plainly visible. "That is hardly a fair example. He was thrice my age and Father chose him, not you."

Edward stepped around that topic and shrugged. "Whom would you choose, then, Liss?"

Her lips parted, then closed. "It isn't about a person. I'm merely asking if I should start dreaming up a wedding dress."

"I… I haven't thought as far ahead as that. We'll have to wait and see what happens; who turns up begging for you."

She smiled, a real, teasing smile. "What, so you can exempt all those who want me from the possible list of candidates?"

He laughed out loud and offered her his arm again; this time, she took it. As they fell into step evenly with one another, his laughter subsided and he dipped his head to murmur to her. "No, not necessarily. We'll let all the impotent, uninteresting ones stay in contention."

Lissie sighed, traces of her smile still on her face. "God have mercy on me."

"No, no: '_Edward_ have mercy on me.'"

"I suspect my prayers in that regard would fall on deaf ears." She tugged her cloak closed around her body again. The Thames was kicking up a surprisingly cold wind as they neared the end of the garden with its protective walls of shrubbery.

"That would depend on what kind of mercy you were requesting." His meaning was unreadable as Edward stared out over the water, the corner of the garden having come to a plateau so that they could view the great river as it curved and stretched invitingly into the distance.

This time, when Lissie tipped her head upward, she didn't have to squint: the sun was falling away as if tired, settling against the far west horizon, disappearing between its own bedlinens. She shivered a little and Edward, his gaze still vacant, tugged her absently closer to him. His body always seemed to radiate heat. She laid her head against his upper arm, the furthest northern point she could reach on his body while they stood vertically next to one another.

"Did you watch the sunrise this morning?" she asked suddenly.

His nostrils flared a little, and again she could not read her brother as a dozen emotions – if she had to guess, guilt, anxiety, anger among them – flashed over his face. "Yes," was his simple reply. And she pressed no further.

Lissie felt utterly still, watching the sun's dying rays as they scattered a hot-looking light over the surface of the Thames. "I've never really conversed with Sir Nicholas before. He seems kind."

"No. He's not," Edward said just as idly.

"He supports Jane's cause."

"He supports her because she's not Anne, and because she's not Lutheran. And because he wants her to petition for Katherine of Aragon's daughter."

"Perhaps he just thinks she's a suitable candidate for the king's wife," Lissie shrugged, "and is pleased to see someone of similar belief and allegiance making her way to the throne. Perhaps he's happy our family is on the ascent."

Edward shook his head. "He's using us. He'd abandon us in a heartbeat if we changed tack."

"Changed from papal allegiance, I suppose?" Lissie raised an eyebrow. "Then we ought to be careful who speaks on those matters around the supper table."

"Indeed we ought."

"And if Jane doesn't succeed as queen, he'll abandon us?"

Lissie shivered as she said it, truly out of physical chill rather than fear, but Edward removed his arm from hers and wrapped it around her shoulders instead, draping his own jacket over them both. "It won't much matter if he does. Our security will be in the hands of Tom and me. Carew is useful now, but he's a fickle flame, always has been."

"I'll make my own judgment on his kindness," Lissie declared even as she pressed closer to the warmth that flowed from Edward. "I do look forward to his wife's arrival. I hear he's entirely pecked, and dances to her fiddle. He's never had a mistress, you know."

She sensed, rather than saw, Edward's smile. Darkness was creeping over the garden and would shield them against the tall shrubbery soon, erasing and fading them into the dim landscape. "Who told you that?"

"The ladies at court. He's loved his wife all these years."

"Loved her all these years, yes; and it's true that he's never had a steady or notable mistress. But you'd be a fool to think him a steadfast husband."

Lissie twisted against him, turning her skeptical face upward. "Not true. He's entirely in love with his wife. He's never had another," she insisted.

"I could name you a dozen women who would testify otherwise, Liss. He's a rake. He's tumbled his fair share, believe me."

She made a huffy little sound and settled back against his shoulder. "We'll see," she muttered, having no other argument but not wanting to accept Edward's statement.

Edward groaned. "God, I hope not."

Lissie drew a great breath into her lungs and let it out slowly, slowly between pursed lips. She licked them. "Should we go back in then? I imagine they'll be looking for us. Supper will be soon."

"In a minute." He kissed the top of her head, nothing between them but the comfort of a brother and sister. She nodded and said nothing until she saw the first sign of twinkling star begin to appear in the still-illuminated sky.

From halfway down that long row of hedges tall enough to conceal the Seymour siblings, Anne Stanhope stood silent and still, watching her husband hold his little sister. She watched as he pulled off one leather glove and smoothed some stray hair over the top of her head, then rested his cheek where his fingers had just been. She watched his smile as Lissie pointed one finger up at the sky, his gaze following hers as they counted the emerging stars as the night awakened before them. She shivered, too.

iv.

Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, crumpled the paper in his hand. He fought to keep a snarl from his lips.

"Tell him," he growled at the page who was backing out of the room, attempting to be subtle, "tell him…"

The lad had halted and remained slightly bent at the waist in a deferential bow, even as Norfolk grappled with his own sensibilities. His teeth chattered against one another despite his clamping shut of his jaws. "You tell him." But he stopped again. He had never felt a rage quite like this, not at his dolourous wife, God bless her, not at any of his wayward siblings or cousins. This level of effrontery had never in all his years been bestowed upon him. And it might, he feared, be enough to consume him. It might be enough to propel him to… what?

Parchment crinkled so easily in his fingers, his aging, exhausted fingers. He was exhausted from the Boleyns and the king. He was exhausted for fighting for his place, for his preeminence and inheritance. He was exhausted from protecting his assets, and it seemed his very self, from the likes of Cromwell.

"You know what," he managed at the young man who had levered himself upright in Norfolk's privy doorway, "I'll tell him."

The lad stepped out of the duke's path and let him go first, then dallied long enough that he was lost in the peer's stead. Norfolk opened his fingers and then closed his fist more tightly before, again and again, so that the balled-up communiqué was crushed into a progressively smaller clump.

He didn't pause in the secretary's outer rooms. The work force in there had the good grace, he noted, to defer to him. He spoke no words and threw open the door to the corridor which led, he knew, to the man's office.

Unsurprisingly, Cromwell was holed up with that overgrown badger, Richard Riche, newly-appointed Solicitor General. Riche had a set of parchment spread over a book on his lap but his hand held no quill. His finger grew heavy against the sheet before him as he turned to look at Norfolk, as though his digits needed the support. Even Cromwell had the decency to look surprised at the arrival of the premier peer in England.

"Master Riche," Norfolk greeted, and thought he sounded fairly well pleasant, "if you would be so considerate as to give me a moment to converse with our right dutiful Master Secretary."

Norfolk's nostrils flared when Riche spun to look at Cromwell, as if asking permission. Cromwell nodded and flicked his eyes at the door to the office. Riche stood, bowed, and made an exit that looked both hasty and grateful.

"My lord Norfolk." Cromwell irritatingly did not stand. Thomas Howard told himself not to let this gesture be a bother, as that was precisely the effect that Cromwell intended.

The duke cleared his throat and found himself lacking the will to force another pleasantry. "What in the name of the Holy Spirit is this?" He brandished the letter that Cromwell had sent, informing Norfolk that he would serve as head of the jury that would try the queen and her alleged lovers.

"I cannot quite tell, Your Grace - ?" Cromwell began in that same bland tone, and Norfolk lost himself. Striding across the room at a pace he had not known his body could still reach, the duke was behind the secretary's desk in what seemed like an instant and had the younger man by the collar. He hauled him up – another show of the strength that he was unaware he still possessed – and shoved the crumpled letter into his face.

"Must I drive it into your eyes for you to acknowledge my meaning?" Norfolk growled, his voice low and dangerous.

Cromwell would never have admitted it, but he felt fear. Norfolk could smell it on the man. He shook the secretary, his thin frame easy to force.

"Must I feed it to you?" Norfolk pounded on. "Must I carve you open, Cromwell, and put it into your heart for you to absorb its absurdity?"

"Your Grace must speak plainly with me, for you know I lack the education to understand these elegant metaphors." Cromwell met his eyes. The secretary, too, looked exhausted. Cromwell looked older than Norfolk felt. His eyes were sunken and there were hollowed shadows under his cheekbones.

Norfolk's chin quivered again, and he held the tip of his tongue between his upper and lower teeth for a moment, biting down on it gently with each quake of his jaw. The slight pain soothed him somehow. "I am to serve sentence on my blood? My own niece and nephew? My sister's children?"

Cromwell let out a little sigh. "Your Grace must understand that as first duke of the realm and His Majesty's senior peer, there is no other –"

"No other option than her uncle to tell her that she'll be burned or beheaded at her husband's pleasure?"

"My lord," the secretary murmured back, eyes flicking up and down as if nervous, "it is the duty of each of us to demonstrate to His Majesty our loyalty."

Now Norfolk did sneer. "You are the basest of creatures. The lowest of the king's men."

"That I am," Cromwell allowed. "And you, the highest. Your Grace."

"She's my niece!" The duke burst out, pushing Cromwell back against the stone wall that shrouded the great desk. "My niece! I've known her since before she could walk, before she could talk. You are telling me that I must look at her haggard face, her worn, spent, abandoned little being and read her a death sentence?"

"If she's found guilty." Cromwell squared his shoulders against the stone behind him but made no move to shake Norfolk off. "It is your duty to His Majesty."

"And yours? When is the last time you have thought of her as a human being, as any other than an obstacle in your path?"

The secretary's nostrils flared and his green eyes – actually a deep shade, Norfolk noticed, having never been so close to the man – swiveled up to meet the question. "I do not think of her merely as an obstacle," he declared, low and final.

"Have you ever had to sacrifice one that was dear to you?" Norfolk raged, shaking Cromwell a bit. He heard the back of Cromwell's curly-haired head crack lightly against the wall.

Cromwell didn't answer. Instead he drew a deep breath and licked his lips, gaze flickering like a torch caught in the wind.

"I won't do it," Norfolk tried again, his growl turning a bit pleading. "I won't."

But the secretary was nodding, a tiny, resigned up-and-down movement. "You will, Your Grace."

"How dare you instruct me. Whose choice do you conceive this to be?" Norfolk cuffed Cromwell's shoulder half-heartedly, even as his face crumpled: eyes squinted shut, forehead scrunched, moustache touching nose. "You may rule over us, Cromwell, but you will not force my hand."

Cromwell reached up and gently removed the duke's hand from his body. He tucked it against the duke's own cloak like a father might to a hysterical child: _there, there._ After a long silence, Cromwell took a heaving breath which, Norfolk failed to notice, caught in his chest. The secretary cleared his throat again. "I'm sorry, my lord. I am. You won't believe it, and I don't expect you to do. But truly, with all of my being, I am sorry for this."

The duke drew back, looking at Cromwell as if the dark-haired man was transforming before his eyes. As if he had never seen him before. He backed almost against Cromwell's desk before he stilled, his blinking rapid and breath shallow, eyes swimming with tears. "I…" Norfolk swallowed and grimaced. "I spoke to her, two weeks ago. I told her it would be all right. I told her no harm would come to her."

Cromwell nodded, training his eyes on an indeterminate spot in the air. He knitted his lips together.

"You cannot… Cromwell, I can't be the one to say those words to her. I helped push her into this whole –" he stopped before saying _mess_. "I prayed with her, the last time I saw her. I comforted her and told her that all would mend itself. I teased her for not having enough faith. I cannot say to her, burned or beheaded. You have to understand."

To the secretary's credit, the effort of silence appeared to be a great one. Thomas Cromwell's temples rippled with the evidence of his clenching jaw. But still he said nothing and stared into thin air. The duke could not have known that Cromwell was remembering himself saying to Anne, that starry night shortly after Elizabeth was born: _All will be well. Have faith._

"Cromwell," Norfolk's voice broke, hitching on a sob that the duke struggled to contain in his throat. "I played games with her when she was little. I watched her grow. I bought her her first riding habit. I can't be the one to say those words. Anyone – have anyone else say it. I'll concur. But I can't say it. Myself."

Cromwell drew breath in through his nose, a wet sound, and pursed his lips tighter as they began to tremble.

At long last, Norfolk brought his trembling hands together and tried to fold them in front of his chest. He had trouble lacing his fingers betwixt one another, and with a cry of frustration, a few tears finally spilling from his eyes, the duke swung one bejeweled fist and caught Cromwell on the jaw, knocking him sideways. "You son of a whore. You devil," Norfolk murmured evenly, standing over the quivering heap of England's Master Secretary. "What a coward you are."

Were it not for the dark haze of Cromwell's hair blending with his dark clothing against the dark stone wall behind him, Norfolk might have caught Cromwell nodding as if in assent.

The duke took a deep breath as if steeling himself, and stepped away from Cromwell. He turned as if to go, but without warning brought the toe of one boot sailing through the air to crash against Cromwell's upper abdomen. This brought Cromwell the rest of the way to the floor with a choked gasp.

"I won't forget this," Norfolk promised solemnly before turning and walking slowly, purposefully, out of Cromwell's office.

Riche did not burst back into the room immediately, and it was a thankful thing, for Cromwell could not coax himself from the floor. The duke's anger at him meant nothing. His insults, his attack, were inconsequential. For a moment when Norfolk's stiffened leather toe had crushed into his chest, Cromwell had offered his thanks up to God: this was it. The man would burst his lung and he would die. Instead, the dull burning of head, mind and body acted as an outside force, compelling Cromwell to curl his form into a ball. He cupped his face in his palms. _I told her all would be all right, I told her no harm would come to her,_ Norfolk had said; _I can't be the one to say those words. What a coward you are._

_I held her in my arms. I made love to her. I told her I would gut anyone who dared disrespect her – and the next day I had her arrested. I told her I would let her run, offered her passage, but I lack the spine to do what is right and help her, force her, to escape. So I will, instead, _he retorted to the duke, to the empty office that seemed increasingly to be an entity of its own, _proceed with her trial, make her family and loved ones betray her in a way that I can convince myself is worse than my own disloyalty. And then I will move on, and you will move on, and we will find other reasons to hate each other._

Cromwell maneuvered gingerly onto his knees, braced his weight against his chair, and staggered to standing. Sniffling and wiping the discharge from below his nose, he straightened his jacket. He ran a hand through his hair and made sure that Norfolk's rings hadn't caused his jaw to bleed. "I won't forget this either," he finally replied to Norfolk, in a whisper. The vow availed him nothing but the knowledge that it hurt to speak. Cromwell placed a hand carefully onto his chest, against his throbbing new wound. He wished the duke had kicked a little higher and a little harder.

v.

After supper, Jane dropped a quick curtsy and begged forgiveness for retiring early. "I find myself so overwhelmed with pleasure and gratitude," she told Sir Nicholas smoothly, "that I cannot delay my rest this night. I pray to find more time to converse with you and tour the grounds on the morrow."

"Of course. Of course." Sir Nicholas bowed politely and smiled as Tom escorted Jane upstairs. The remaining four stood from the long table in Carew's dining chamber and began milling about themselves, having had no time for the formal exploration of the great house.

Anne Stanhope was exclaiming over the drapings that hung heavy from the row of great windows lining Carew's downstairs sitting room, which was a long gallery with high ceilings that Lissie could see as the setting for a great ball or masque. These drapes started, on one side of the room, at deepest scarlet and faded ever so subtly pair by pair so that the last set, on the opposite side, shimmered vibrant red. It was clever, really. One would never notice unless one's eyes jumped from the first end of the hall to the other.

Carew smiled. "My Elizabeth loves that type of detail." He shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Men are not so attune to those niceties, is that not correct, Edward?"

Edward grinned and concurred, but Lissie took in his expression and knew he was just flattering the man. Edward noticed fairly well every detail, of everything and everyone.

Lissie wandered along one wall, inspecting a series of tapestries that depicted different Roman gods and goddesses. Silken-haired, buxom ladies smiled confidently out of the scenes, while handsome, strong-jawed men with rippling muscles seemed to be enticing her to smile back at them. The workmanship was superb, she thought. Jane would adore them: she was a talented embroiderer herself. When she said as much to Sir Nicholas, he nodded as if pondering. "Thank God you let on," he murmured in a relieved tone. "I was grappling desperately with the question of what to get her as a wedding gift."

"She won't need gifts," Lissie insisted. "She isn't that type, really."

Carew chuckled. "Type or no – gifts she'll get. Hordes of them."

"Well, if anyone else is puzzling," she murmured conspiratorially, glancing over her shoulder to be sure Edward and Anne had left the room, "see to it that they don't get her Bibles. Our brothers have gotten her Bibles for every occasion since we were children, it seems." She rolled her eyes and chuckled.

He laughed out loud. "Men are hopeless with gifts," he agreed. "But Jane's quite the pious woman. I can see where they'd think that a good token of their esteem for her. And an inscription in… the Roman style?"

Lissie had been holding her breath waiting for this turn in the conversation, where he, where anyone, would want to ask her about Jane's religious preferences. It mattered little, she knew, that Carew was a known conservative. Edward had advised everyone to stay furtive on the topic rather than being seen to endorse or take opposition to the king's current beliefs, which were as murky and confusing to Lissie as the dozens of Bibles that Jane owned were to her, given, of course, that she could not read.

Carew held her gaze while Lissie blinked once, twice. "I haven't inspected her gifts, sir. I shall have to circle back with you on that question."

"Do," he agreed with a smile. It was a knowing smile, a gleaming smile. It said, _I was just testing you, Elizabeth Seymour_. "And since I must abstain from giving her a Bible, perhaps you'd give me your opinion between a set of paintings I've just received. One of them might satisfy the need for a gift for her, if the tapestries don't."

"Oh?" He was already leading her around the parting wall and Lissie glanced over her shoulder, but again no Edward and Anne.

"They're both of the Christ's passion," Sir Nicholas was explaining. "And both from local artists, London artists. They're quite different, yet."

The corridor was softly lit, but when they entered the chosen room Lissie drifted to a stop. It was bright, with tapers almost lining the walls, each of which stretched tall and wide with its own built-in bookshelf.

"The library," Sir Nicholas explained redundantly. He gestured with one hand as they crossed the floor, Lissie shaking off her sense of awe: "My study is through there. Most nights I am burrowed away in there until the small hours of the morning. It's quite a wonderful retreat."

"I'm sure." Lissie was still gazing about, taking in the sight of what had to be thousands of books. How large was this house, entirely?

He led her to two framed paintings that leant against the bookshelves, stretched canvas with scenes painted so brightly that they looked to be still wet. "These are the two." He turned toward her. "What do you think?"

The scenes bore vast dissimilarities. While both seemed to move and shimmer on their own terms, the one on the left swam with people – angry faces, raised arms clenching weapons, waving fists; the consternation of the mob radiated from the lines. Their faces were flushed, and their bodies were wrought in great detail. These were the people of the masses, the common people whose posture slumped, who wore rough-hewn clothing and were outraged at this man who claimed to be the son of God. Amidst all their rancor, and in spite of their abuse, the top half of the scene depicted Jesus' elegant, effortless form. His limbs curled painfully around the nails that held him in place, but his face was etched with none of the hatred of his crowd. He stared off to one side, eyes clear and gaze sharp, as if receiving a commission or focusing on a goal. He could not have been more Christ-like, Lissie thought.

The other was a simpler portrait, almost abstract in setting, with the only human on the canvas being Jesus himself. Not even a digit of an angry hand was visible in the lower rim of the scene. Jesus' form seemed to writhe in its place. Not only were his hands and feet curled in pain, but his muscles were detailed and shadowed. They rippled as had those of the Roman gods in the tapestries. The pain of God's son was written clearly on his face. His mouth twisted in anguish, slightly open at one corner, but no sound seemed to emanate. Almost as if he was breathing through his earthly pain, reminding himself that he sacrificed for the whole of humanity, the entire race of those who stood by to crucify him, to kill him, that they knew not what they did. Unlike the serene focus of the other Jesus, this man's eyes were screwed shut and, without looking more closely, Lissie knew that his ducts brimmed with tears. She could feel it. This man begged for mercy, begged for death, even though there was no one else in his frame.

She had been silent for some time, she guessed. Sir Nicholas stepped forward, having stood back to let her view the paintings, and cocked his head at her. "D'you fancy either of them?"

"They're very different," she offered weakly. "Each one is a masterpiece."

He chuckled. "You are right – each has its strengths. I can't decide which I like best." He surveyed both paintings too. Lissie was suddenly nervous, wondering if he was lying and he did like one or the other best, and he was trying to see whether she fancied the same one.

"I'm trying to think which one Jane would love more."

"Does she prefer large scenes, or more focused works?"

Now Lissie laughed. "I'm not sure Jane has such choosy taste in art. The choices in her life, up til recently, have been more along the lines of which colour dress to wear, or which vegetable to harvest and preserve first…"

"Or whether to give herself to the king, or hold out for marriage," Carew added lightly.

She supposed this was supposed to startle her, but she just shook her head, still smiling. "That was never a choice. Jane is a woman of infamous virtue." She turned her head to look at him. "And if I may say so, my lord, that sort of talk should be stifled. My sister will shortly be queen."

He held up a hand in surrender. "I apologize, Mistress Seymour, I meant no slight. I meant to make the point that Jane's choices in life, and her preferences in everything, will soon require much more thought and care. I did a poor job conveying that."

"That's all right," she said quickly, afraid she'd offended. Carew was a cousin of the king and, if Edward was to be believed, not someone one would want to call enemy. "I am certain that Jane would be delighted at either one of these. I would not be able to say which would please her more."

Carew paused. "And… is there one that pleases you especially, mistress?"

Lissie glanced up. "Me? I – I'd have to think about it."

He nodded slowly, surveying both works of art as they leant together against his bookshelves, and brought his gaze back to hers. His hand came up and softly grazed at her elbow. "Do think about it, Mistress Seymour."

There was a kind twinkle in his eye. She couldn't help but smile back. "I will. And give you my verdict presently, sir."

"Shouldn't be reading this late, sister," came a firm voice from behind them. She didn't have to turn to know Edward was in the doorway of the library. "You'll strain your eyes."

"Sir Nicholas was showing me his paintings of Christ's passion." Lissie gestured toward them.

"I'm thinking of making a gift of one of them to your sister on her wedding," Carew added.

Edward tapped his lips with one hand as he glanced at the paintings. "They're both fine scenes, certainly. But there's time yet to decide. Lissie, Anne's just gone up."

That was Edward's way of saying, _go upstairs to bed; I've got business here._ "If you'll both excuse me."

Carew bowed. "I've got to finish a few letters to be sent out at first light. Edward, perhaps you'll join me for a game of chess in a half hour's time?"

"Indeed."

Mercifully, Edward didn't reach out and physically propel his sister away from Sir Nicholas. But as she had anticipated, he was on her heels as they left the room, tension seeping from his skin.

"Paintings," he muttered.

"He wanted my opinion."

"He wants more than that, Liss."

"By God, but you're impossible." They began to climb the staircase to the second floor.

He looked over at her as they ascended, step for step. "I'm not wrong."

Lissie just shook her head. "Go play your chess." They had reached her room. She leant up and kissed him on the cheek.

"Wish luck to be in my favour," he chuckled. She shook her head and raised both palms, emphasizing her refusal. He swatted at her arm, and she shoved him playfully. He caught her arm and pulled her close, putting his mouth against the side of her face. His breath was hot on her ear. "Elizabeth, you may think me a fool, but I know a man in pursuit when I see one."

She pulled back and looked him in the eye, or what she could see of his eye, which was just a dark gleam in the dusky hallway. "Edward, you may think me a fool, but I've no desire to surrender my maidenhead to a married man in his library." She paused. "Although it's quite an impressive library."

He squeezed her shoulders as if in reprimand. "What if he offers you a bed?" he chided.

Lissie backed away and put her hand on the door to her room. "Chess isn't a game of luck; it's a game of skill. I like my own bed," she whispered. "And there is room for one only." With that she slipped inside, leaving him to guess at her meaning.

**A/N: Readers, thank you so much for your time spent on my story. We are somewhat in the home stretch here… chapter 35 out of what I imagine will be probably 42 full chapters and 2 chapters of epilogue (because each chapter has between 5-10 sections, and after almost 4 years of accumulating scenes for the epilogue, it looks like I'll have upwards of 25 sections to publish there, so…).**

**Please leave me a review. They make me very happy!**


	36. Chapter 36

**A/N: Right, so the 27 October goal didn't work out. This chapter proved so difficult to write for some reason. I was just uninterested in writing my scenes. AKA I didn't plan exciting enough scenes, apparently, ha! But I hope they come off well for all of you =)**

******Note – I drop a fairly important bomb in this chapter. I have hinted at this in the past but no one seems to have zeroed in on it (at least, no one has communicated their cognizance of it to me). I've tried to maintain subtlety in revealing it but it is an important plot point and will determine a lot in the remainder of the story, so please, in your review, indicate whether I've written it clearly to communicate what's happening.**

**Alyson, so wonderful to have you back! I'm very happy to hear positive feedback on Edward/Lissie from you. This plotline came out of absolute nowhere for me and I was stunned when I realized where I was going with it… I should join Can't-Control-My-Characters Anonymous lol. Which pattern do you mean that you'd like to see them break? (Plotline suggestions never hurt!) I have lots of plans for them but also want to avoid the story becoming about them. It's about so many characters now lol! I agree – it's wonderful to fantasize about Cromwell's vision coming true, but so much easier thought of than done. My heart is already breaking for the end of this story – it's been my project for four years and I don't know how I'll get through writing it =(**

**LeCreationist, thank you for your feedback about Norfolk! I do get bothered when the people around Anne are portrayed in such a single-faceted way. I think their relationships were all very complex as any family would be. Poor Cromwell indeed, I am trying to write him as very human so hopefully I'm getting better at it. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts as we continue!**

**Hi Rae! Sadly, there WILL be more fallings-out! Oh boy they are tricky to write without being cliché. Lol. Norfolk " :o" I agree. Don't worry, in The Borgias Cesare/Lucrezia just become more and more delicious. Have you finished the series yet? Yes – it does seem Cromwell has a little too much of Anne on his mind. And I love writing the Seymour family, their dynamic was just too much fun with Edward being like "girls seriously wtf" and the girls like "omg dresses!" Jane and Henry did not sit together waiting for the canon, but that's a very poignant vision, isn't it? And not altogether at odds with what I believe about Jane Seymour personally (which is a characterization that is slowly, slowly taking shape). Oh, btw, I have re-worked my prospectus for the remaining chapters (I am always planning and re-planning as things shift) and there's basically no chance of this being done by my birthday in February, which means we will have more time with these plots! =D Let me know how you are doing, my dear. And how college apps are coming.**

i.

14 May

Morning

"Do you know, when Elizabeth was born, she had the most beautiful red hair?"

In a familiar gesture, the quiet little maid looked around to be sure that she was the one her queen was addressing. She concealed a sigh, poorly, but Anne ignored it. "No, madam. Your daughter was born with red hair, you say?"

Anne's eyes lit up and she raised both hands in a grasping gesture. "Mounds of it. I could have braided and plaited it that very day. She was blessed with a true mane; she'll be a great beauty for it one day."

The maid, whose name might have been Kat or Kit, or something else, smiled timidly. "I've never had the pleasure of making Her Grace's acquaintance, my lady. But I can hardly imagine that your child would be any other."

"She was small – she was smaller than I'd thought she would be. My belly was so great in holding her," Anne continued as though the maid had not spoken. She looked at the spot where, on her lower belly, both hands had rested to cradle. "You should have seen how large I was for carrying her. I … Henry and I thought I must be carrying some titan of a son."

Kat or Kit hesitated. "And what joy to find that you were carrying a beautiful little flame-haired girl," she tried.

Anne tilted her head at the girl. "Come now. You know that isn't true." There was a little silence while the maid busied herself with collecting Anne's discarded bed linens, a bland smile fixed on her face. Her hands shook with anxiety at having possibly offended her mistress.

And so it was that the girl missed how the queen rubbed both hands over her lower belly, a small, sad smile on her lips. Not a smirk, but a true smile. How she bit down on her quivering lip and tipped her head backward to stop tears from leaking from her eyes.

The queen turned a bright smile back on the maid. "It did amaze me," she continued as though they were old acquaintances reminiscing about common experience, "how small she was. The physician placed her into my arms, this tiny little bundle with twitching limbs and making perplexed noises, everything about her so tiny, and I looked at her and looked down at my belly and thought, dear God, what's the rest of this mess then?"

"My sister recently had her first child," Kat or Kit nodded. "She wondered the same. The following morning, she looked down in dismay and asked the midwife where her waist had gone." She chuckled.

"The body does change, for certain. I've…" Anne sniffled. "I've had three miscarriages, three dead births after Elizabeth. Each of them large enough that it was a labour to bring forth. And my shape altered with each."

The girl swallowed and deposited the lump of blankets and sheets on the floor in front of Anne's great bed. She separated the first sheet from the rest and brought it to the naked mattress covered only in a bottom sheet of fresh linen. Holding the first sheet in both hands, she let it fly above the bed and settle itself, then went about the task of tucking its corners and smoothing its wrinkles. "I am sorry to hear of your misfortune, my lady."

"I'll wager you've heard of it before – and probably a worse version at that. That I birthed a dead demon, or even a live one. But no one can question my daughter's perfection." Anne spoke more to herself than anyone else. "No one can."

"No, Your Majesty." Kat or Kit was locating the second, thicker, covering sheet from the mountain of linens.

"Children really are," the dark-haired lady went on as she curled her knees closer to her chest and adjusted in the window seat, "all the perfection that exists in the world. They are really the only perfection that _can_ exist. Before they're much grown, we sully them, with our expectations, our hopes for them… in spite of them."

The girl finished smoothing one side of the middle sheet and flitted to the other side of the bed, nodding silently as she went.

"We expect that they will be little adults, reasoning, calculating, thinking little politicians and courtiers when they should still be allowed to be children. We see in them our own advantage – our own legacies. Rather than treating them as having their own lives, we impose upon them our visions for their adulthood while they are still small. While they are still tiny, sometimes." Anne shivered a little. The maid looked over at her, unsure if she was supposed to contribute to these musings, and saw tears running down the queen's cheeks.

The queen licked her lips. "Our expectations for them begin mounting as soon as they are born, in many cases. The truths associated with their parents' unions, and their goals – they doom our regard for children in many instances. As soon as we hold them in our arms, the battle is over. They are either great triumphs or great disappointments."

Plucking up the thick-woven wool blanket that was next, Kat or Kit averted her eyes from Anne.

"Sometimes a child is doomed," Anne continued, and with a glance over to be sure the maid was not looking, held that area in her lower abdomen again. "Before it is even born. Sometimes it's resigned to its fate before its mother even gets to hold it. Before its father even gets to feel it kicking."

The queen broke off and wiped her cheeks with one palm, keeping the other wrapped across her body. She and her maid looked at one another, and then mutually, delicately, away. A quavering smile appeared through Anne's tears.

"It's the greatest tragedy, I feel. What we do to our children. What we would do, sometimes, to beget our children; and then how quickly we ruin them. How desperately…" Anne broke off, her words having become strangled. She took a deep breath through her tears and composed herself, though her eyes continued to rain sorrow over her pale cheeks. "We want them, how fervently we beg God to send them to us. And when He does, we are not always grateful. We do not always appreciate His blessings, His children that He gives to us. We do not always give them the love that they deserve, because we are so preoccupied with what they mean to us, what they can do for us, or how their existence can be used to our advantage. In the meantime, they are only children… children who want to run and play and laugh."

The maid's movements were quick and deliberate as she pulled the last covering onto the bed, a tear leaking out of one of her eyes as well.

"Or even babies," Anne said again, "only able to grab onto our fists. Or even…" she trailed off, her voice soft, as she stared out the window, "even, when they are not yet babies. Before their father gets to hear that blessed bellowing of a newborn child, and before their mother gets to say to them, _Hello, sweetheart_; before their parents can sit together, hands clasped over the round swelling of a quickened womb, to feel the kicking from within; before their child even greets them. Sometimes all the world is against them before any of that can even come to pass. Sometimes a child has no merciful chance. It is truly," she whispered, her voice barely audible, far beyond the maid's ears, "the greatest of tragedies."

An array of plumped pillows greeted her eyes when she looked over toward her bed, and Kat or Kit dropped a little curtsy. "My lady."

Anne nodded, giving her leave. She really must, she chided herself idly, stop all this musing aloud. But what matter? It could make no difference now. Nothing could.

She rested her tearstained cheek against the windowpane. It was gray outside; she could almost feel the wetness in the air. A shame, for mid-May.

"Don't you think it's the greatest of tragedies?" she asked the outside world. Or so it looked – yet she still clasped her belly, gently, lovingly. Her eyes dropped from the unremarkable scene outside to the indistinguishable part of her lower abdomen, which was swathed, as had become her custom lately, in thick layers of loose fabric. She tried again to smile. "The greatest of tragedies? Hello, sweetheart."

ii.

Nan Saville's fingers twitched the folded letter back and forth as the door to Master Secretary Cromwell's apartments swung open before her. The score of young men in Cromwell's employ swiveled to look at her, and each one nodded his deference as the queen's chief lady entered their workspace. She forced herself not to clutch the letter tighter, not to crinkle it, as she crossed the floor and headed for the corridor that led to Cromwell's private office.

Footsteps approached her in the hall, and soon two figures appeared: one was Solicitor Richard Riche, looking as sick and strained as Nan felt. He looked genuinely surprised to see her, as if he had forgotten that she existed. "Mistress Saville. Good morning," he greeted her with a bow.

"My lord," she murmured back.

Beside him was one of Cromwell's boys – Mark, his name was. "My lady," he said. He didn't bow. He didn't take his eyes from her face.

She nodded in greeting and stepped around them as gracefully as she could manage to. "Excuse me." She had to make it into Cromwell's office before she lost her nerve.

Cromwell also looked surprised to see her. "Mistress Saville. What prompts this pleasure?"

"Master Cromwell," she said crisply, "I hereby tender my resignation from my post at court." She brandished the letter, its crease having been sharpened by her fingernail to a potentially hazardous blade, and dropped it lightly on his desk.

He made no move to reach for the letter; like Mark, Cromwell kept his eyes trained on her. "Mistress Saville –"

"With your permission, I will leave forthwith."

"Where will you go?"

She bristled. "I will find a place."

"My lady, I would not feel comfortable releasing you from court and potentially into harm's way. You are the queen's chief lady. Surely more pleasing arrangements can be made for you."

"Such as?" She held the words on her tongue. "I won't be invited into Jane Seymour's household."

Cromwell's eyes flicked to and fro. A few men were in his office, but she hardly spoke out of turn. The whole of court, indeed probably the whole of the realm, would be aware of the impending queen. They could dispose of decorum at this point, he supposed. "There really has not been any discussion about the personnel for Mistress Seymour."

"With or without, what I say is true. You know it to be true. I have no quarrel with Mistress Seymour, of course," she added quickly, also looking at the others in the room – who, to their credit, kept their eyes dutifully on their books and parchments. "But since I foresee no employment opportunity, I think I would do well to anticipate my future with care."

Nan's eyes widened with horror when Cromwell suddenly cleared his throat. "Give us a moment," he said into the air. Each of the men in the room rose from their desks and made their way out. The last one closed the door quietly.

"There is no need…" Nan began.

Cromwell sat back in his chair with a sigh. "Mistress Saville, you must not think that your best option right now is to run from the court. In time, adequate arrangements will be found for you, whether it's a suitable marriage, a post at court, or a stipend that would allow you to set up some sort of life for yourself."

"Adequacy at this juncture," she replied evenly, "would be separating myself from the court. I want no gestures borne of guilt: no pay-off, no consolatory betrothal. I want to move on. I need to move on. That is why I am informing you of my resignation, Master Cromwell."

"Your release from court would require the approval of me and of His Majesty, don't forget," he informed her just as curtly. "It would be a mistake to attempt to defy that requirement."

Nan's nostrils flared. He had never seen her angry, and he didn't want to. "I want to be free of this place, and these people," she told him, moving forward so he could understand her lower tone. "They're all poison, the lot of them."

"All?"

"Every last one." She enunciated each word.

"Surely you don't wish to leave the Sheltons alone," he tried. "Surely you see that they need you to manage them."

Her face wrinkled in incredulity. "Am I to be their keeper for life, then?"

"For life, no. In this period of tumult, my lady, it would be cruel to abandon them."

"I suppose, given that the betrothed of one, and the lover of the other, are both held in prison under threat of execution." Her eyes were green like his, but a lighter, more vibrant green. She met his gaze.

He stared her down. "I would watch my words more carefully, Mistress."

A moment later, he wished he had chosen his own words with more consideration, for with that sentence he watched Nan Saville transform into something he had never seen in her before: a passionate woman. He had seen her fierce loyalty, and he had observed her intense grief and guilt. But, in keeping with the example of the mistress she revered, Nan had always exhibited the perfect control of a courtier. She stood before him now, anger and hatred permeating from her skin. The air around her seemed to shimmer as it might around a fire.

She took a deep breath as if trying to contain herself. Then her hands were on his desk and she scooped piles of paper, leaflets, even a book or two, off to one side and onto the floor with a fluttering sound and a series of thuds. "I don't _want_ to watch my words," she told him, loud and clear, in what he suspected would be a shout if she let go entirely of her manners. "I don't want to be careful of my behaviour. Why should _I_ observe the niceties of court etiquette," she pounded on, shoving at the materials on the other side of his desk and clearing it almost entirely with one great push, "while my innocent mistress awaits her death?"

Cromwell held perfectly still, watching this outburst. He hoped that he looked stern, but in truth, he was largely in awe of her and slightly in fear of her.

"We all bow to one another, 'Good morning my lord,' 'Good day my lady,' and chatter about the weather and gossip about who's taken a mistress and who's been seen dallying with whom, and for what?" Nan leaned over his desk, now largely bare. No tears quivered in her eyes. She was as hard as stone. She was ruined, he saw. There was no innocence left in this girl, barely more than a child, and she was right to blame the court for that. This place was, for sure, full of poison. It had ruined Anne; it had ruined Nan Saville; it would ruin Jane Seymour; it was even slowly ruining him.

The green eyes narrowed as they surveyed his face, and for one awful moment Cromwell was certain she was about to either inquire about the bruise on his jaw that marked where Norfolk had struck him, or else strike at him herself.

Instead she stepped back. "For what, Master Secretary?"

He leaned forward, placing both elbows and forearms flat on his now empty desk. "For the sakes of our lives and our fortunes. For survival." His answer was low and honest. He didn't trust his voice enough to raise it.

"And sometimes, as in the case of my mistress, it does not even avail us that."

Their green eyes held each other in mutual weariness. "What would you have me say?" Cromwell finally asked her.

"I…" Her nostrils flared again, and her mouth twitched as she visibly fought to keep her emotions in check. "I would have you release me. I would have you tell me something that will ease the burden to have to go on living. I would have you explain to me how you are able to enact such horrors without collapsing under the weight on your own sins." She clamped her mouth shut then, realizing the risk of her statements.

Cromwell looked down, wishing his armor was not so broken and weathered that her words bit through it like an axe through hammered tin. His jaw slackened and his mind ached. Nan Saville remained, rooted before him, trying to look imperious even though her slight form now trembled a little bit. He swallowed, looked up, and extended his palm wordlessly.

After a few moments' hesitation, Nan placed her hand in his, keeping her shoulders and neck pulled back. She did not even trust him enough to put her hand in his, he saw.

He was still hunched over his desk. He squeezed her fingers gently, and brushed his lips over the back of her hand. "All I can say to you, Mistress Saville, is that I am sorry."

Although he expected to be answered with a demand of what he was sorry for, Cromwell felt a tremor run through Anne's chief lady, her friend. Her only friend. Nan's lips quivered, then it moved to her jaw, and then she steadied herself, nodding. To his eternal shock, she returned the soft squeeze of her hand. There was a practised grace in the way she slid her fingers from his and returned it to her side. He did not have to guess who she had observed and imitated to learn that elegance.

_What are you sorry for? For murdering her? For spreading filthy lies about her? For ruining innocent men and those who loved her on the wayside?_ He could hear her firing these demands at him, echoing loathing through his ears.

Braced for the onslaught, Cromwell almost flinched when Nan took a breath. She licked her lips. "Forgive me for mussing your papers, sir." He watched in muted shock as she turned and walked slowly out of his office, the only echo coming from her clicking heels.

People came into and out of his office like clients – they told them what they wanted, they told him what they needed. They relied on him to provide for them. There was no one into whose office he could go for that same service. He could retreat into a conversation with God, yes; but he was not a man made of stone. There was no one, he thought as he staggered to his feet and began gathering the papers on the left side of his desk, against whom he could rail and who could give him any sort of absolution or closure. Or even counsel. He dusted off one of the books Nan had shoved to the floor, set the disorganized pile down, and moved to the right of his desk. He closed his eyes for half a moment when he crouched, remembering the way he had stepped on the heel of Anne's shoe and slipped her foot out of it that day, on their way to his desk.

Everyone carried their guilt and their anger with them; he was not alone in that. None of them could stop this now. None of them could stop what was happening to Anne. He straightened with an armful of parchments, sniffling to keep his running nose in check. The resistance to Anne's fate, and the support of her downfall, it all fell on him. He was the dam in the ocean of her death, he alone, holding back all the inertia of the rest of the world. And yet no one knew the extent of his role. Only she shared the knowledge.

He sat down with a sigh, shuffling the papers back into their original spots and piles. Nan Saville's resignation letter sat in the middle of his desk, having survived her tantrum. He picked it up between his second and third fingers and without opening it held it over the open flame at the front of his desk. The orange tongues lapped sensually at Nan's hidden indignations, her righteousness never to be seen by earthly eyes. He watched as they neared his fingertips, and seared on contact. After a few unbearable moments he withdrew his fingers from the candle and tossed Nan's letter, a limp rag engulfed in an already dying flame, to the floor. The pain of his burnt fingers soothed him in an unsettling way. He placed the smarting flesh against his tongue to cool them, glancing at the floor to see that the letter had extinguished itself, a pile of defeated ash.

Satisfied, Cromwell turned back to his freshly organized papers and picked up his quill. Thankfully, Nan had not spilled his ink. He dipped the pen and began to write, ignoring the stinging of his flesh. He steeled himself inwardly, vowing that he would not falter now. He would burn all resistance to what was happening to Anne Boleyn. Even his own.

iii.

Noon

Anne Stanhope sank down beside them with a sigh.

"What's the matter?" Lissie asked her.

"Nothing," her sister-in-law replied. She raised her eyes toward the altar, not looking at Lissie. "Nothing at all."

No one pressed further because the sound of footsteps reached their ears then: Sir Nicholas Carew joining them in the chapel for mass.

"Ladies." He greeted them with a bow. "Good morrow."

Jane, at Lissie's right elbow, smiled up at him through her veil. "Good morrow, Sir Nicholas. I trust you slept well?"

"I did," he confirmed, and the younger Seymour sister swore he cast a glance in her direction. She trained her gaze forward, on the straining figure of Christ. "And you, Mistress Seymour? You are well-rested and content?"

"Indeed." She nodded at their host, who bowed again and retreated to his seat a few pews behind them. His chapel was of middling size but beautifully decorated and Lissie took in the stained-glass windows that lined the outer wall. When the chaplain entered and began the mass, she dared a glance behind her and met the steady gaze of Sir Nicholas, who gave her a lazy smile before lowering his head to his clasped hands.

iv.

Twilight

"Majesty." Cromwell stood and gave a little bow.

Henry faced him, feet planted wider than his shoulders, which were squared. "Cromwell. How are you today?" The king's mouth twitched a little, and his foot tapped once, twice, before he caught it and stilled the movement.

"I am well, Your Grace. And I hope you are in good health?"

The foot tapped again. "Yes," Henry said dismissively. "I wanted – well, I wondered whether you'd had any updates about…" he cleared his throat and looked about. Cromwell swallowed, realizing why the king was here, why he'd traversed the length of Greenwich to stand impatiently and uncomfortably before his secretary like a supplicant, cap in hand. He wanted to know about Anne.

"About the queen, Majesty?" Cromwell supplied, reaching for the stack of reports Kingston had sent in the past day or so. The stack was not tall, but that it was a stack at all was impressive; the gaoler was diligent indeed.

Henry made that low noise in his throat again. "Well. Have you?"

"Indeed, my lord. She remains in good health and has been made aware of her trial arrangements for tomorrow."

"Yes. Good." The king nodded.

A beat of uncomfortable silence, and Cromwell held out the letters. "Would you care to see the reports, Majesty?"

"No, no…" Henry held up a palm against the letters as if warding off a beast. "No. I would, however, know what Kingston has said. If you would care to summarize for me?"

Cromwell blinked. He tried not to look surprised. "Yes, my lord, of course. Would you have me write out a summary, or…?"

The king shifted his weight. "Perhaps. But perhaps you might simply read through them, now? I mean not to interrupt if you're about some other pressing business…"

The secretary stifled a grim chuckle. More pressing than a personal request from the king? "Not at all, sire. Would you care to sit down? I am afraid there are no particularly comfortable chairs here; I could have one brought from my personal rooms..."

"Anything will do," Henry said quietly. He shuffled forward and sat down in the chair before the secretary's desk. Cromwell took in the sight for a moment. The king had never sat there before, but dozens of others had: some who were now dead or awaiting death; some who hated this court and all that it represented; and one who would shortly be its queen.

"Let us start…" Cromwell thumbed through the stack, looking for the bottommost sheet. "These span the previous days, Majesty, and depending upon what sort of information interests you –"

"All of it. I want to," Henry cleared his throat again and averted his eyes. Cromwell felt a mild spike of alarm, but just a mild one. It was only natural that the king's curiosity would have gotten the best of him. And perhaps, Cromwell thought, his own ability to feel the intense emotion of alarm, shock, fear, or guilt was weakening. He felt himself growing numb. "I want to be sure that she's being well cared for. That no one could accuse of mistreatment or the like. You understand." The king's sharp blue eyes bored into Cromwell's. They said to him, _I cannot disentangle from her completely. I am possessed with thoughts of her. I hate her for it, and I hate myself for it. I must know about her, without being seen to need to know about her, not by anyone – even by you. My mind aches for knowledge of her._

Cromwell nodded. "I understand, Your Grace." He smoothed the first report on his desk and looked away from the king's twitching countenance. "Most days she's risen early, but today she slept later, nearly til eight o'clock. As usual she declined to break her fast upon rising, and spent much of the morning in prayer and reading. Near the hour of two in the afternoon, she was obliged to take some refreshment and was witnessed to eat an early apple, cut into pieces, half a slice of bread, and a small amount of mutton. She has drunk warmed spiced wine as she finds herself chilled throughout the day."

"Any signs of catching a chill?" Henry broke in.

"None, sire. The royal apartments at the Tower are well-insulated; it may just be that the queen is unaccustomed to the cool air that comes off the river."

Henry sat back in his chair and held out one hand, a gesture one might make in an academic conversation. "And if she isn't eating enough, she won't be warming her blood adequately."

"True, indeed – yet she complains not at all about the cold, according to these reports; merely mentions the chill as a circumstance. Shall I have Kingston investigate?"

"No. No." The king shook his head. "Read on."

Cromwell picked up another sheet. "She is asleep long before midnight on most days and her maids wait until she has retired to do so. They are housed in an adjoining chamber, that the queen may have privacy, but of course the keys remain in the hands of Kingston. Her new household was assembled last week and she has not resisted their overtures, although they claim she has not yet learnt their names."

"That's not like her," Henry murmured.

"She is pleasant but quiet and gives no one any difficulty. She does, however, tend to ramble about certain topics. Among them: her childhood," he flipped through the sheets, seeking the notes that Kingston wrote on Anne's conversational trends from day to day, "her immediate family members, ravens –"

"Birds?"

"Yes, it would appear so. Perhaps she's seen them through the windows and has become preoccupied with their folklore. Her mind has ample time for wandering," Cromwell pointed out. He flipped to the report from this morning; the dispatches from the latter half of the day had not yet arrived. It was just past twilight.

"And has she mentioned her brother?"

"Not of note, my lord. Master Kingston has not noted it." Now was not the moment to tell Henry that he had allowed Anne and George a final meeting. He was not sure the moment would ever come. Kingston would never discuss it with anyone else, since Kingston never wanted to discuss anything with anyone, so if Cromwell wished it a secret, it would be one that they took to their own graves. "I believe it's mostly been about her mother, her poor mother who will die of grief, and her sister Mary…"

Henry snorted. "Who will die of happiness."

Cromwell set his jaw. Mary Boleyn was hardly resentful or bitter. Of all the free, loving spirits Cromwell had encountered, the sister of Henry's queen ranked among the top few. He kept her in small luxuries as they came to him from friends on the Continent, having maintained a polite correspondence with her for years. She had inquired about her sister's health but never begged to be restored at court. And he heard, through a few men who had passed through her shire, that her formerly delicate beauty was now sun-kissed and robust. If any Boleyn stood to gain from Anne's fall, it would be Mary; yet, Cromwell secretly suspected that she would not take it well. "But about their childhood and the queen's regrets regarding their relationship now, my lord."

"Well." Henry sniffed and sat up straighter, a perfect peacock. "What did Mary expect, wedding a commoner without her father's permission?"

"Indeed, Majesty." The page ruffled again as Cromwell brought their attention back to the task at hand. "She's… most recently, this morning, she was discussing Elizabeth."

The royal blue eyes ticked up. A slight wrinkle of consternation appeared in Henry's forehead at the mention of his child. "Oh?"

"Well – all children, it seems. One of the maids was involved in a fairly lengthy conversation and reported it back to Kingston, who sent it up this afternoon."

"What else did she say about Elizabeth?"

Now Cromwell cleared his throat. He looked at the page, wishing he had just lied and concealed this. He had gone over this missive earlier and had felt a twinge of discomfort reading about how Anne had discussed her daughter. These reports, these letters, were Cromwell's last link to her. He would wager he had less than a week of them left. Just a handful of days, in all, to remain linked to this woman before she would be gone forever. These verbal musings that she made, so deliciously, as if totally unaware that her words were noted – but Anne could not possibly fail to understand that – were more intimate a connection than most people had ever had with the queen. When Cromwell had read about Anne's waxing poetic about children, and expectations, and failure, his heart had pounded and sunk in his chest as though he was having the conversation with her himself. He had imagined himself as her friend, palming her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, pressing a kiss to her forehead or her red-tipped nose. It was a closeness he would never achieve in life – not with her or with anyone else. And he did not want to share this intimacy, this vulnerability of Anne, with Henry. It felt akin to baring her body before him, the irony of which was certainly not lost on Cromwell. "She said that Elizabeth had a surprising mane of red hair when she was first born – and that Anne herself was great and heavy in carrying her."

Both men were quiet, with Cromwell hoping that Henry would accept this as enough and end this exchange. Instead Henry said softly, "She was very large with Elizabeth in her belly. And Elizabeth's hair… she's right. A great amount for such a tiny child. That's how…" the king shuddered and took a deep breath. "That's how we said she was the perfect mix of us both. Anne's long, beautiful face… and the red hair of my father's family." Henry gazed at Cromwell until the secretary bent his head and read on.

"The queen went on to talk about children and how too much pressure on them can ruin them and turn them from being what they should be, which is simple, innocent beings. She…" Cromwell glanced up and quickly back down, avoiding the king's intense stare which he could not quite read. "She said that expectations, she feels, often spoil a child's chance at a happy life, as the advent of that life can be fraught with joy or despair based on circumstances beyond the child's control. And because the child's life can be so impacted thus, their race might be run before they even take their first breath in our world."

The king was still staring, but his gaze had turned inward. Cromwell glanced at the sheet before him, finding the last note Kingston had made.

"The queen called it 'the greatest tragedy.'"

He placed the report back onto the desk, silently begging the king to be satisfied with these revelations and not to make him go digging through past days' reports. Cromwell did not want to share any more of Anne with the king. These days in the Tower, these final days at which they had arrived together, where he had sent her on her way and where she would be an accessory to her own political murder, her words were for him only. It mattered not to him that this was merely his own fancy. As far as he was concerned, she spoke and acted and moved in a pageant before his mind's eye, and in his mind's eye he not only listened and watched, but cared, held, protected. He would not relinquish access to his world, his private world with her that was coming rapidly to an end, to apocalypse – not to Henry, not to anyone else.

He glanced up and met the king's gaze. Henry shut his eyes and to Cromwell's surprise, a dulled shock in keeping with his growing numbness, tears spilled down Henry's cheeks.

"She's right," Henry murmured.

The secretary's mouth opened and closed. He licked his lips. "Majesty, I apologize ever deeply for having upset you –"

"No, no, Cromwell. You've done what I asked. Thank you." The king braced one hand on the arm of his chair, the chair where, in the past fortnight, had sat Mark Smeaton, Jane Seymour, Jane Rochford, and Richard Riche, among others. Henry paused halfway off the seat. "It really is – the greatest tragedy."

Cromwell rose in deference. "May I help with anything else at the moment, Majesty?"

"No," Henry murmured over his shoulder, trying to conceal the hand that he brought up to wipe his eyes. "You've done enough."

One hand on the parchment with Anne's words, her deepest thoughts and sorrows, Cromwell watched the king go. The door clanked shut behind the king and Cromwell sank into his chair, then slowly lowered his head to his desk until his cheek rested on those words: _the_ _greatest_ _tragedy_.

iv.

Late Evening

Riche wondered whether he was drunk again, but at this point, he supposed, it was less a question of being drunk and more which varying degree of drunkenness he currently possessed. He had been sipping wine constantly for above a week, both to fend off the desire to sleep and to dull his senses against the realities of being awake.

But he was nearly finished with his tasks for the trial, which were all that stood between him and the freedom of his bed. However, even his bed these days provided little in the way of freedom. He wiped a hand over the unkempt beard that waggled from his chin. He badly needed a shave, and a good night's rest, and a purging of the soul.

The firelight flickered then, insistently, as if saying, _come along Master Riche, let's finish this then_, and he refocused on his list. He had been making a summary of the charges against the queen for her trial on the morrow; a few copies of it would be made, for those who were attending but not sitting on the jury. He would finish the copy and hand it off to one of Cromwell's boys to scribe out a dozen or so copies, of which he would be the keeper. The members of the jury had been delivered a full account of the indictment and the charges in all their details, but this list was to be shorter, a summary for those who already knew the information well enough that they required no full listing. Unfortunately, he himself fell into that category.

His wine was getting cool in the goblet. He drained it and filled the cup from the jug which warmed by the fire. He took a sip and sighed: "ahhhhh" as he skimmed over the indictment again to choose which information to include.

"'She, despising her marriage, and entertaining malice against the king, followed daily her frail and carnal lust,'" Riche muttered into the rim of his goblet. "Well, all those attending will be aware of that piece of fiction. '… did falsely and traitorously procure by base conversations and kisses, touching… divers of the King's daily and familiar men to be her adulterers, so that several of the King's servants yielded to her provocations.' Aye. What man could refuse her thus?" He chuckled, the darkness of his bedchamber enveloping him in safety, in truth. He could say here and feel here and think here, the base truths that he could never dare admit in the broad daylight. "Kisses and touches from that woman would turn any man to be her adulterer. Were she so inclined."

But this was not the information for the summary, he knew. He flipped the page to find the listing of the queen's alleged trysts:

"Ah. 'On 6th October 1533, and divers days before and after, she procured, by those sweet words and touches' – damn them – 'Henry Norris of Westminster, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber…'" Riche snorted into his wine and choked a little. He coughed to clear his throat and gave himself a silly smile. Oh, if only Master Secretary could see him now. "Gentleman, indeed. '…To violate her, by reason whereof he did so at Westminster on the 12th October, and they had illicit intercourse at various other times, both before and after.' Well, of course. Who could have her just once?" he mumbled, scratching out: _Incited 6 October 1533: adultery 12__th__ October 1533, &before &after._

"Not to worry," he assured the list that he had just started as he sprinkled sand on that entry and moved to the next, "about the fact that Her Majesty still laid abed at that date in recovery after the birth of her daughter, the Princess Elizabeth. She was not churched until the eve of St. Edward's. But no trouble. No trouble at all." He blew on the sand and the candle next to it flickered. He turned back to the indictment.

"'On 3 December 1533, and divers days before and after, procured one Will Brereton of the Privy Chamber, to violate her, which he did so on 8 December at Hampton Court, and on several other days before and after.' So then: _Incited 3 December 1533: adultery 8 December 1533, and before, and after. _Yet, were we not at Westminster for the entirety of the Christmas season that year? Well." He threw back the rest of his wine – he had lost count of how many goblets tonight, but his fingers felt thick as he reached for the jug again – and shook his head, still with that grin on his face. "No matter. If the paper says so, so it must have been. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps we all are wrong. Who's to say any of us have functioning memories, or minds? Absorb we must, the knowledge we are fed. Why let us think or remember on our own when our truths can be manufactured by those who govern us, and served to us on a silver tray? Or in this case, a thoroughly detailed indictment."

Riche stopped and rubbed his temple. He swayed a little in his place before lowering himself to his chair. Vaguely the thought came that he was not well and perhaps should stop drinking wine now, but he had been having a lot of irritating thoughts lately, so he pushed this one from his mind as he had the others.

"8 May 1534!" he announced to no one, reading over the next charge on the indictment. "And, naturally, at other times before and since, she procured Sir Francis Weston – whereby he did so, of course, on 20th May, and so forth. In the spring air. The lucky cur." For a moment the image actually flashed through his mind, of the queen underneath the strong body of Weston, and his heart pulsed quickly over two beats. Of course none of it was true, but by the light of the Saviour; if it were, he would be splintered with jealousy at that thought. He scratched out this entry, careful not to note _the lucky cur_ in the margin.

"Oh, 12 April? Out of order," Riche clucked his tongue at the indictment. "Perhaps it's difficult to keep track of so much delicious carnality. '12 April 1534, procured Mark Smeaton to violate her, whereby he did so 26 April. And divers other times…"

His hand shook as he sprinkled the next pinch of sand, and blew it with a shudder. "And we've arrived at last at the incest; 'having procured and incited her own natural brother George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, alluring him with her tongue in his mouth, and his tongue in hers…' Have mercy. 'Whereby he, despising the commands of God, violated and carnally knew the said queen his sister… 5 November 1535, and divers other days before and after at the same place and others.' Or," Riche said lightly as he jotted that date, "perhaps we are disposing of Rochford for other purposes, and this seems an adequate stratagem. Perhaps. And what else have we here…?

"Ah. Entertaining malice against and plotting with men to kill the king. Yet is that not what the king has done to her? And orocuring her servants to be her lovers – well, I think we've covered that." But he noted it anyway, even as the page shimmered and swam a little before his eyes. He blinked rapidly, suddenly wishing for water to drink or something to eat. He looked about but only found his wine. Shrugging, he took a long sip.

"Being damningly, sinfully alluring… but I won't write that one," Riche murmured as he slumped over, checking the indictment to be sure he had covered all but the last page before he flipped to it.

"'_Divers acts of treason resulting from her crude and adulterous nature._' '_Wishing and planning harm upon the King's Majesty.' 'Agreeing to marry a man of base pedigree after the King's death.'"_ Riche snickered as he summarized these sweeping charges, amused at their ridiculousness. But of course it made sense that they should be ridiculous. No mild betrayal would do for the political murder of the king's wife; no ordinary crime would be strong enough to topple a queen. In a way, he could understand Cromwell's thought process. He could almost see the Secretary, bent over his desk in the dead of the night, dreaming up absurdities by the light of a single candle. Treason, adultery?, he might propose; no, it'll have to be more than that. Her downfall would have to be a spectacle, so stunningly sordid that no one could question it.

Suddenly Riche was laughing, really laughing, his belly shaking with each hysterical peal. "God," he tried to say, but it came out as little more than a gasp. It was so ridiculous, all of it. So blatantly false. If anything, Anne was far too imperious, far too regal. She was protective of herself and her position, having maintained a defensive stance for so many years while waiting to be queen that she was in many ways guarded to a fault. She would not commit adultery with a courtier; everyone knew that. Therefore any charge of that genre had to be so overblown that anyone who heard it would be awed by its filth. Anything so unimaginable to the mind, so unbelievable to the sense of reason, must be true. Riche could see, in his mind's eye, Cromwell concocting these charges. Cromwell was made of stone. He wondered, had the man sweated, had his pulse picked up, as he wrote out the allegations? It was enough to make any normal man prick up in shameful curiosity. But Cromwell was no normal man. He had probably jotted out the scenarios between holding performance reviews for his staff, authorizing capital transfers to the king's agents in Rome and proofreading some new piece of legislation. Cromwell had probably never visualized these titillating scenarios. He was not slave to the guilt and addiction of this whole process. He was a man, Riche noted as his laughter subsided to a bubble, of true substance. He could not only stomach, not only stand for, but create and process things that an ordinary man could barely imagine. A true visionary.

A true, unapologetic murderer. Riche shook his head, sadness and disgust at himself, at Cromwell, quelling his laughter at last.

_Never having loved the king._ Riche completed his summary in silence, this last line an afterthought on the indictment. Never having loved the king. On the contrary, she had loved the king. She'd waited for him, soothed him, challenged him, argued with him; she'd born his child and broken her own heart trying to bear him another. She'd struggled desperately to keep him. She had loved him indeed. And that truth was the only fact, the only error in judgment, missing from this list of her mistakes.

**A/N: So, was the big twist clear?**

**Up next, THE TRIALS!**


	37. Chapter 37

**A/N: Happy December! =D I appreciate the reviews on the last chapter so much – feedback definitely spurs me onward with writing. I had about 400 words written in advance for this chapter, and sat down last night (until the wee hours of this morning, ahem!) and essentially wrote the other 8,000. It didn't wind up the way I planned, but I actually like it and hope that you all will too. Thanks again for your time in reading my story, and as always, please consider leaving a review…**

**LeCreationist, I did it, yes, I did! The twist of all twists. The drama will continue to mount from here so I hope you enjoy what's coming. =D**

**Alyson, I agree, writing with this plotline underlying the rest of the story does add a whole additional level to the tension so I am trying to weave the stories together. I agree that the show did not (arguably could not) do justice to the breadth and depth of Anne's fall, and one of my overreaching goals is to develop those stories as best I can. And, spoiler alert, we will get to see Cromwell's emotions when his own time comes. We will be back with some Lissie/Edward tension, or awkwardness if you prefer, next chapter so I'm looking forward to writing that. As for your compliments about having been writing this for so long, thank you =D The characters are almost like real people to me and I make their development a priority. =D Enjoy!**

**Hi Rae, have you seen the 'How am I supposed to die' Cromwell/Anne video on Youtube? It is wonderful! And someone on there commented and referenced MY story (OMG felt so famous) so I obviously nerdily commented back and no one commented back to me, so I guess I'm a goon lol. Let me know how you like the Cromwell/Anne material in this chapter, if you please! Writing Lissie/Edward is incredibly fun, and I'm exploring their relationship all the time, constantly playing out potential scenes in my head and rejecting or making note of them for later, although that goes for all my characters. The Carew angle developed completely on the fly, and I am not 100% sure where I'm going with it yet, but I am like… 99% sure =D Yes, all is well with my job. I am a corporate reinsurance analyst now, at a big firm. It's great, and academically challenging and I am learning constantly. I love it! Please don't stress about your future; trust me, everything happens for a reason. And I am in the states, in chilly, chilly New England. Happy Thanksgiving to you too! PS DID YOU GET THE TWIST?**

**JFang, I appreciate that you took the time to let me know you did suspect the twist as I was doubting my ability to subtly drop hints. Thank you for that! I hope you'll keep reading and see what does become of all of our characters and plotlines as we draw to a conclusion.**

i.

15 May

Morning

"Popular opinion has Lord Rochford a free man," Riche shook his head, twitching the toes of his boots in the air. Cromwell tried to get past the presence of boots on his desk. The gesture said that Riche was becoming more comfortable.

"Does it?"

"Indeed." Riche thumbed through the notes that he himself had prepared for the Queen's trial. The copies had just been completed and the two men would soon journey upriver for the royal trials; the hearings for Norris, Smeaton, Weston, and Brereton should, Cromwell judged with a glance at the angle of the sun, be underway. The four men not part of the royal family would have their fates decided by a commission of Oyer and Terminer, a child of the commission that had started to investigate this whole affair over a month ago, with necessary personnel adjustments of course. Their convictions were of less importance and required far less vigilance. They would, most of them, be disposable on any regular day. Nevermind when their sacrifice was politically expedient.

It was the Queen and the Viscount who would cause the stir. Their courtroom was the King's Hall in the Tower, and in case either of the accused or any of the attendees should forget the preeminence of their sovereign over all issues touched in that room, a great platform had been erected upon which each of the incestuous siblings would take their turn standing. Likewise, their jury of peers would rise above them in spectacularly intimidating fashion: a veritable wall of scaffolding had been built elaborately against the main wall, enabling the dozens of jurors to sit in progressively elevated rows as though they were watching an entertainment, a joust. Only those who came to watch the trials, the spectators, would be close to earth. The participants in this legal transaction would appear as characters in a play. Cromwell had only realized the irony after he had ordered the building projects to begin.

He stifled a yawn. "Should we become betting men, then? Pad our coffers?"

Riche shrugged absently. His eyes were bleary and the surrounding skin gray and wrinkled. He had been drinking too much, Cromwell knew. But they'd all been indulging in illicit activities lately. He'd leave Riche be. Every man had his ways of coping.

"And the odds against the queen?" Cromwell tried when Riche didn't respond.

The Solicitor rubbed at his eyes. "No one's betting against your wrath, my lord," he murmured.

Cromwell blinked but was careful not to show Riche his reaction. Was it really so widely accepted that Anne's world was crashing around her because of his machinations? Must he cede none of the impetus, none of the origin, to the king? But that was his function. Make the transaction, receive the praise, absorb the blow. Root firmly between those who would support you and those who would ruin you. Refuse to let it affect you. Refuse.

He tried at a joke. "Perhaps we tell them to acquit her, then? Stack our wagers in her favour and rob the gamblers of London blind?"

Riche's mouth crinkled in ill-concealed disgust. His temples rippled as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. "If you wish." The deference came through clenched jaws. The secretary and the solicitor mutually avoided the other's gaze. Cromwell's tongue moved behind his pursed lips: _I do wish. I do wish._

ii.

Midday

The day's schedule had been difficult to assemble, as the pace of the lesser men's trials had been impossible to predict. Subsequent interviews with Norris, Smeaton, Weston, and Brereton had given little indication of whether each man had been softened enough to acquiesce and make the state's job easier, or whether he would fight for his life and his reputation. Each man had been informed, in a careful show of subtlety, that his cooperation would not be overlooked when the time came to consider those he would leave behind. Dangling the threat of financial ruin and destitution of a man's loved ones was usually effective, but again, no one could know whether Norris would dispute each charge laid against him, one by one, with the careful precision of a member of the king's Council; whether Brereton would nod patiently with hollow eyes and beg Henry's forgiveness.

Cromwell should, he mused, probably have attended their hearings. He had entrusted their safekeeping to Norfolk, Lord High Steward for this day and this day only. The duke would have an exceptionally busy day, in all sentencing half a dozen people – most of them known to him personally for some years – to their deaths. Cromwell had not laid eyes on Norfolk since their confrontation in his own office, and that was more than acceptable to him. So long as the man carried out his duties as they all must.

Word had come that they'd embarked on the final hearing for the adulterers, though irritatingly the unsigned missive failed to include much information about the morning's transactions or even the name of the accused whose case was currently being evaluated. Cromwell had arranged that the queen and her brother be prepared to arrive at their trials at any given moment after noon, and surprisingly it did appear that they would keep their schedule. He covered both eyes with his hand for a moment, alone in his bedchamber, having come to find his hat. The coolness of his palm was a shock and a salve to his warm skin. He prayed to God that a fever was not upon him. Or, that if it was a fever, it would be strong and vengeful and take him quickly. They couldn't finish this business without him. They wouldn't be able to kill her without him.

Riche stood beside him on the dock ten minutes later, holding down his cap silently just as Cromwell did. It was quite a breezy day, and sunny, and almost cheerful. It was a day for a jaunty ride and a picnic supper, not to sanction a handful of murders.

Norfolk was assembling his troops, a different and much larger group than the Oyer and Terminer that had just heard the cases of the lesser men. The crew of peers had convened in London over the past two days, some called away from summer business or legal obligations in their shires. They had descended on the town, on the court, by barge, by litter; a few, desperately riding from near the northern border, arriving in the wee hours of this very morning on trembling horses. Cromwell had checked their names off his great list, the list of men who would officially condemn Anne and George, one by one as they had arrived. Some had been away from court for a great time and were struck dumb at the recent changes in scenery.

Henry Percy, tall and thin, was the first man to catch Cromwell's attention. He stood towering over Norfolk like a nervous sapling. He spoke rapidly to the duke, one hand rolling over and over in the air as if making the same point repeatedly. Norfolk nodded along, head tilted back although he stood a solid arm's length from the Earl of Northumberland. Percy's other hand rested at an odd angle on his own midsection. Suddenly, the younger man broke off and squeezed his shoulders together, gripping that spot on his torso gingerly. He bowed his head and his eyes crinkled into oblivion. Norfolk took another step back. He shook his head, his expression one of genuine sorrow.

Riche, at his elbow, swallowed. "Not just rumours, then."

Cromwell shook his head. No. Percy was dying. He resisted his compulsion to make some dry remark that the Earl was obviously suffering a slow death, so why not charge and try him while they were in the thick of it? A quick dispatch to end his pain? Cromwell shook his head at himself this time. If only his Elizabeth could read his thoughts now. She would not welcome him back into their marriage bed if she could see what the past eight years had made of him.

After helping Percy physically into his seat, Norfolk made his way over to Cromwell, his abhorrence of the very act visible on his face. "Cromwell."

"Your Grace. How went the hearings?"

"As required. The men await the king's pleasure. None confessed. None will impugn her to save his own hide. But none spoke against the king; each begged the forgiveness of their king and their Lord and professed himself worthy of death for his many earthly sins."

Riche raised his eyebrows. "Not one man slung guilt at her?"

Norfolk's gaze, cold and sober, met Riche's carefully. Not Cromwell's. "None. Each professed her innocent. It was a beautiful thing, really. Watching them, one would think they'd sat together and planned their defenses."

"Even Smeaton?" Riche persisted. Everyone had expected that the musician would break.

"He got a haircut," Norfolk countered with a mirthless chuckle. "How he managed that I'll never know. Trimmed and polished, in a clean shirt and a black jacket like a gentleman. Even took out that damned earring he always wears. He spoke calmly, and firmly, and defended the queen against the allegations. But affirmed that he is a sinner and a base man, and…" he trailed off, staring into the distance, as if watching this new version of Smeaton the Saint. "Agreed that he does deserve death and begs for the king's forgiveness and mercy on his soul as Supreme Head of the English Church."

"God." The solicitor rounded on Cromwell. "You sure you didn't tutor him before the trial?"

Cromwell rolled his eyes. "So they're back in their rooms?"

"Yes. Half an hour since. Once the peers settle in," Norfolk indicated his jury with a sweep of one bejeweled hand, "we'll open the doors."

They'd been fairly quiet about the trials of Rochford and the queen, but as peers of state the legal proceedings technically must be allowed open attendance, and word had inevitably seeped out that the royal trials would occur soon. For each of the past two days, as the jurors had trickled into London, a progressively greater amount of Londoners had amassed outside King's Hall to wait for the trials to begin. Today, spying Cromwell's barge and then his gold chain of office, word had spread like plague that Anne and George Boleyn would be tried before sunset. Even in the quarter hour since they'd arrived, Cromwell could detect a louder buzzing from outside the building, firmly guarded as it was by Kingston's unflinching men. Cromwell glanced through the court's doors to the great heavy doors that opened out into the external courtyard beyond, whereby Londoners would enter and exit. He could feel their buzzing in his chest.

When the jury had seated itself and every man had set his cap to rights on his head, Cromwell and Riche made their way through the scaffolding, greeting each man formally and equipping him with the necessary props for their pageant: blank parchment, a quill, an inkwell in case they needed to take notes. Copies of the full indictments had been passed out confidentially when each man had arrived in London, sometimes with astonishing speed and incomprehensible efficiency. Knights and lords had been greeted by young men in Cromwell livery, plain black doublets with a ruff at the neck, and presented with a packet containing the salacious details of their legal responsibility. They'd accepted these parcels while standing in the entryway of a London inn in the early morning, or while downing a cup of ale at a tavern just north of Greenwich, not yet having reached the palace. A few had had the indictments pressed into their hands while in the very stables of the palace, or in the courtyard, before they even reached shelter. Before they could even murmur about the deadened court or grumble about the strictness of the summons. Cromwell had found them all, one by one, most before they'd found him. He'd accosted them with these papers, with this truth that they must study and memorize and be prepared to accept. He carried copies of these documents now, in case any of the men had misplaced them. Or sold them, for copying and dissemination. He was pleased when no one asked for a new copy. Each man spread his personal set of charges on the great table before him, next to the identical inkwells and the freshly cut pens. For a moment, Cromwell smiled to himself: these peers, each of them far grander and higher than he, resembled at this moment his horde of scribes. His boys. And for today, they would fulfill many of the same functions.

"My lords," Cromwell said simply when he had finished, causing the whole of them to rotate to look at him. "His Majesty thanks you for your assistance on this most delicate matter. I thank you for your forgiveness of my urgent summons. And the law thanks you for upholding today its most valiant justice." He bowed his head, palms pressed together as if in prayer, and moved silently to the seat he had requested be built for him, off to the left of the jury like an esteemed lady to her lover. Honour and serve him they would.

iii.

The crowds hushed to a murmur as those great doors swung open again and a lone slight figure came into view, flanked by two more of the Tower guard and followed by Kingston. He had expected she would look even thinner due to anxiety, but Cromwell was surprised to see a slightly less gaunt Anne enter King's Hall. He hid a smile at the sight of her headwear: a sleek black cap, perched on her head like a flattened hood, with a long black feather that bobbed and fluttered with each movement. Anne's hair was pulled entirely off her neck and shoulders, probably coiffed into some intricate knot, and hidden beneath. Her face was clear, soft, and more relaxed than his own. He traced her features, looking for a hint of malice or challenge there, and found none; only earnestness. Her blue eyes glowed, not for him, not for anyone but herself. He readjusted in his seat, tearing his eyes from her face with effort that he hoped was not noticeable. But a glance around the Hall told him that no one was looking his way. Every pair of eyes was trained where his were.

Anne's movements were familiar, the almost oblique posture, the self-contained inclination of the chin. Her figure was drawn into a black gown – rather tightly, it appeared as she came closer – that split in the middle to reveal a gleaming red underskirt. Cromwell had to wonder whether she had taken care to pack this gown for the trial she must have known would be coming, on that day when Suffolk had had such difficulty arresting her. Whatever effect she had intended, she had succeeded. From the waist up, Anne looked every inch a paradigm of fashion; from the waist down, she was a martyr.

She had her hands clasped before her waist, which did appear, as she came closer, to be straining at the seams. Perhaps that was the style and he was unaware. Or perhaps she was so exceptionally thin that most her gowns hung off her, and this was how they were meant to fit.

From somewhere in the crowd, a strong voice echoed through the hall. "God save Your Majesty!"

Anne kept walking forward, astride with her guards, but she turned her head. The gesture was elegance personified. The luxurious feather swirled about her head. Her hands parted, and she gave a wave, at shoulder level, of acknowledgement. She nodded thanks, the corners of her mouth curving upward slightly, and turned to face her jury of peers.

Having reached the base of the platform they had erected for her, she paused. With a quick glance around and a breath slightly deeper than usual, the only action to belie any anxiety, Anne reached for her skirts.

It was then that she found him, flicking her eyes directly to his. There was no searching, no wide gaze: she'd known where he would be. It was then that he saw challenge. She picked her skirts up in both hands, holding them just above her ankles so she could mount the shallow steps without tripping, and he saw why she had looked at him so. Why she had essentially smirked at him with her eyes. She wore silky stockings in a shade of deep red, to match her underskirts. The memory cracked through his mind like a whip, the night before her arrest when he had pressed her against the wall of her closet and slid his fingers up her stockings. _I've been guessing what colour stockings you were wearing. Every time I've seen you, I've guessed. I've driven myself mad wondering._

He must have flinched, must have become heavy-lidded for a moment or given some indication that she had caught him thinking, for Anne looked away then. He could hear her voice, could remember her answer as though she was repeating it now, communicating her triumph silently to him: _You run the kingdom, and you're undone by stocking colours?_

The thousands – above two thousand, Cromwell would say, if he were to venture a guess – gathered in the Hall fell completely silent as the queen reached the top of the platform and dropped her skirts, advancing to the small podium that had been put in place so she would have a place to lean, or to lay documents if she brought any with her. Had she been appointed counsel, there would have been a need for documents. But she knew that there would be no legality, no exhibits needed, and she had dutifully brought none with her. She knew the part she had to play, Cromwell realized with a grim sinking of the heart. And she had prepared aptly for it, dressing the part, comporting herself with dignity and humility. She had starred in many an entertainment before. This was no difficult science to her.

He held her in his gaze, having failed to anticipate how difficult this moment would be. The memory of her mouth pressed against his in hushed reverie that night would not die. _What drives you mad?_ He had asked her. Those four words echoed through the silence with such resounding volume that Cromwell's gaze darted about, terrified that he had said them out loud. As if on cue, Anne shuddered a little under his stare, although she looked at him no more.

Norfolk finally found his voice and he addressed Anne with an imperiousness that impressed Cromwell. The duke, too, knew his role.

"Your Majesty, Queen Anne of England, has been called to account for your many heinous and treasonous acts against your lawful husband and sovereign, His Majesty Henry the Eighth, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland, Defensor Fidei and Supreme Head of the Church of England. You will be tried by this jury of your peers, who have sworn an oath to uphold the law and letter of justice and to preserve the peace of the realm. Your indictment will be read as follows." Norfolk spoke blankly, blandly, as though addressing a statue. Not his niece. Not the girl whose first riding habit he had bought. Cromwell suspected that the duke had fixed his gaze somewhere over Anne's head, but he was not at the proper angle to know for sure.

Smoothing what appeared to be steady hands over the indictment, Norfolk began in the same monotone to read the charges leveled against Anne. One after the other, the luring, the procurement, the carnality which had been discussed and examined so many times that the charges were familiar to Cromwell's mind. Smeaton, Weston, Brereton, Norris, and George Boleyn. The crowd murmured a bit at each line, and at the allegation of incest an incredulous hiss rose from the people of London. Of course, now, they would cease to scorn her. Now. Not when she needed their support. Not when she was desperate for their approval. One man booed aloud at the detail of Anne's tongue in George's mouth, and Cromwell wanted to laugh at the irony of it, at the fact that the defense of the common people was beyond useless to Anne at this juncture. There was a minute crinkling at the corner of Anne's eye that told him she saw the humour too.

She did not flush or gasp at the sordid details as Norfolk recited her fictitious sins to her. She did not tremble at the implications that she had planned or prayed for her husband's death. She nodded at the appropriate moments to let Norfolk know she was listening and understood his words, her feather bobbing along behind her to let Norfolk know that it was also listening and understood, but both remained silent.

When he finished reading the general summaries of her sins and the reasons that she must be brought to account, those delightfully vague accusations that were ridiculous in the eyes of the law but would be impossible to refute, Norfolk fell silent. All this time, uncle and niece had held one another's gaze. Each was the only person in the Hall to the other. Boleyn, Howard. Like blood coursed through their veins. Like ambition had brought them to this precipice. Cromwell suspected that like regret would bind them to one another. Norfolk pressed his lips together to suppress a quivering jaw, and Cromwell knew then, knew for sure, that Norfolk would do his best to take care of Anne, to do what little he could now when he had failed her so horribly.

The queen took a deep, slow breath. There was no need to rush; they had all the time in the world to sentence her to death. Cromwell watched her collarbones rise, watched the swell of her chest above her bodice. His eyebrows twitched a little as he strained to make out the curve of her waist, of her breasts. She was luscious, for certain. Yet it was not the Anne he knew. He could swear he had never seen her body look this way.

"Your Grace, uncle; my lords," Anne curtsied her deference to the men who stared at her, all in similar black caps with feathers, and similar to hers as well. "I would protest my innocence of these charges before you, before the people of London, and in the eyes of God. With your permission, my lord Norfolk, I would lay bare my own sins and my innocence of the sins alleged of me."

Riche turned his head to look at Cromwell; what was she talking about? Without moving, Cromwell glanced at Riche. Both men looked back at the queen.

The peers behind him were likewise exchanging glances and slow shrugs. A few dutifully picked up their quills. Norfolk held his niece in a searching gaze, trying to ascertain what she was about, and finally nodded. "Granted."

And so she launched into her defense, a defense that she could not have planned beforehand as she had never been availed of her own indictment, in itself a crime against legal protocol. Anne worked her way through her alleged suitors, addressing the men one at a time, explaining her relationship with each. Henry Norris was her husband's most intimate groom, and had a longstanding engagement with one of her own most intimate ladies. Over the years they had become kind acquaintances and, yes, had had friendly discussions. Was it true, Anne said firmly, that she had been informed Henry Norris spent too much time in the royal apartments? Yes, it was true. But could she bar him for no good reason? No. Refuse to let him visit his betrothed? No.

William Brereton was not so much an acquaintance as a man she had met on several occasions, and with whom she had never had conversation. As the peers must know, she pointed out, Brereton governed Wales and was at court a few times per year at best. Even during those times, he was not in close capacity with her husband the king and had no ties with anyone in her household; therefore she had only realistically been in contact with him a dozen or so times over the past years.

Likewise, Sir Francis Weston was no familiar in the royal apartments. He served her husband, yes, as a minor diplomat and had provided much loyal service to him over the past few years. Indeed, yes, she had granted Sir Francis a small sum of money as thanks for having completed a diplomatic mission that had pleased her husband in 1533. If the jury would care to look over the accounts of her household for the month of February 1534, they would find such a gift and its explanation, along with a cordial response from Sir Francis. The man did, Anne conceded, have a reputation. There was no disputing that. She meant not to testify to the goodness of all those at court, but to provide for her innocence and that of those men charged with these crimes.

Mark Smeaton, while not a gentleman at present, had not even been invited into the royal household by the dates in question. Anne outlined the dates of his advancement from memory with surprising clarity for a woman who had not had this information before her in at least two weeks, if even that. He had been a recipient of her musical patronage as well as that of her husband for years.

The queen's monologue, lengthy and complex as it was, riveted the attention of those in the Hall. The crowds behind her maintained their hush and those jurors who had perhaps considered taking notes were still. Cromwell watched as she made eye contact with each of the jurors, calm and confident in her defense against charges that had just been made plain to her. Her profile was illuminated in the afternoon sunlight that streamed through high windows. Her lips parted and pursed with each point, her head and its accompanying feather nodding and shaking in earnest. She was not acting.

Her brother, George… Anne trailed off. He was her brother. She was his sister. Yes, she loved him, and yes, he was one of her closest friends. Yes, they had spent time alone together. Much of it over the years. She paused, eyes faraway in thought. She took a long, sweeping look at the peers who faced her. She dared any one of them to declare that they had never spent time alone with their siblings.

Further, Anne stated, the dates that had been presented showed more than one error of plausibility. On this date, she had been recovering from the birth of her daughter, the king's daughter, Elizabeth. On this date, she had been confined with fever, no one but her maids in and out. On this date, and that one, and that one as well, she had been brought to bed with miscarriages, with bleeding during early pregnancy, with a dangerous stabbing feeling in her womb. Her midwives would be able, she challenged the jurors, looking her uncle in the eye, to attest to her inability to sit up, speak, or even move on many of these dates. As would any woman who had ever birthed a child, lost one, or helped deliver one. At that statement, Anne had to pause as a number of female voices in the Hall rose with cries of affirmation, supporting her, validating her. More than one of the jurors was fidgeting in his chair.

Anne maintained her focus on the men before her. She was not a perfect person. She confessed it willingly. She had not been a perfect wife. She had failed to provide her husband with a male child, to her sorrow as much as his. She had not shown him perpetual support, and had often taken it into her mind to be jealous of him and some of his pursuits. Cromwell glanced down and back up as she chose that word carefully. The entire world knew that Henry had waited for Anne for six years, only to betray her within six months of their nuptials.

She had, she admitted, coveted the materials of queenship. She loved her husband, but she had become greedy at times, forgetting her way to God. She had sometimes lacked wisdom and discretion in concealing her greed and jealousy of her husband, and for that she had already begged the forgiveness of the Almighty. She blamed no one but herself, she vowed. She held no one liable for that but herself. God, too, held her liable, and he would teach her how to absolve herself of those sins. But by Christ's sacrifice, Anne proclaimed in a ringing voice, she had not committed a single one of these crimes. She had not imagined ill toward her husband, nor ever planned or spoken of his death, nor even thought of it except when she prayed to God to preserve his life.

All this, Anne concluded with her palms pressed together before her chest, the same gesture that Cromwell had found himself enacting when he addressed the peers before her trial, all this, she left to their consciences.

Norfolk shot Cromwell a look. This had not been discussed, the secretary realized. They had not discussed the trial itself in exhaustive detail: she would enter, they would charge her, she would speak, guilty. Any recess? Discussion?

Cromwell looked out over the crowds. He looked at Anne, who remained firmly facing her uncle. He looked at the peers, their downcast expressions telling him all he needed to know: their instructions having been memorized and accepted, their resolve was nonetheless shallow. There was no time for a recess, no time for any sharing of these doubts. The Hall would overflow if word got out at how aptly the queen had defended herself. It would turn into an even greater spectacle. Save that for George Boleyn, Cromwell thought. Spare her. The other four had already been sentenced and convicted. They could afford no hesitation, no misstep now. He nodded once at Norfolk. _Do it._

Riche stiffened beside Cromwell as Norfolk called the jurors to verdict. The few who hated Anne enough to override all else were called upon first. Cromwell had seated them thus on purpose. But even those voices lacked passion.

"Guilty."

"Guilty."

"Guilty."

Anne never flinched.

Norfolk did.

Cromwell did.

Northumberland was the first to quaver. He gasped, clutching his side again, eyes wide in his thinning face, staring at Anne. Perhaps he was seeing what could have been. If so, Cromwell thought he should buy the man some ale and strike up a friendship. Common ground had never been so perfectly defined.

"Guilt… guilty." Percy finally managed to get the word out. Eyes flying to Anne, he saw that she gave a slight nod to his answer. Acknowledgement. He had loved her once, and she him.

The two thousand common bodies in the Hall breathed as one, stunned silent by this failure of justice. Had they really thought she would be acquitted? Cromwell wondered. He really should have laid some wagers. None of these Londoners uttered a sound as each repetition of _guilty_ reached their ears. The word became a drumbeat, the rhythm to a song. Slow and steady. Any hesitation jarred, and there were many hesitations. But each man knew what he must do. And finally it was Norfolk's turn.

Cromwell straightened in alarm when he saw that the duke was crying. "Christ," the secretary muttered. Norfolk was right. Cromwell should not have made him do this.

"Guilty." Norfolk concurred at last, tears raining from his wet beard and pooling on the indictment, smearing the ink, washing away the words of her crimes. They were hers now, unanimously. She was guilty of all charges because this jury had said so.

Every eye in the Hall fell to Anne. She cleared her throat with a slight dip of her head, as though the physical force was necessary to dislodge whatever crowded her airway. The little sound, the little "ahem" was so feminine and light. So carefree. No tears sprang to her eyes to match the image of her uncle the duke. She faced him again slowly. "I defer to the preeminence of your judgment, my lord," she said calmly.

"You are – you are forthwith," Norfolk blinked rapidly, refusing to wipe away his tears in defiance. Cromwell could see that Norfolk thought himself defiant. "Queen Anne. You are forthwith stripped of your noble title, your lands, your income, and your personal estate. You are stripped of all titles but that of Queen, as befits the wife of a reigning monarch."

Which every soul in the room knew would be taken from her soon enough.

"Since you have so grievously offended said King, Henry the Eighth of England, our most esteemed lord, by committing your acts of treason and adultery against him and against this realm, having been here attainted of the same, you are subject to punishment under the law. You have warranted death, which will be achieved promptly here within the Tower of London, by being burned alive until dead –" Norfolk disintegrated into sobs then, and finally wiped his eyes and nose with one velvet sleeve. He propped one elbow on the table for support and leant heavily into it. "Burned alive until dead, or else have your head cut off, according to the king's decision."

Anne held his gaze, just a small wrinkle of fear between her eyebrows, as if bracing her face for a slap. She watched him quietly, as if to say, is there anything else?

Norfolk grimaced. "May God have mercy on your soul."

Again, Cromwell waited for the crowd to erupt into noise – cheers, shouts, anything. But there was silence. Anne's part was not over.

She stepped back from the podium and folded her hands together again. "My uncle, my lords, I will not say that this sentence is unjust, nor will I allege that my explanations and refutations may have prevailed against these charges. I did not presume to change your minds or opinions of me. I believe that each of you has sufficient reasons for your verdicts given here today, but also believe that they must be different than what was read aloud in court, for I can vow that I have cleared myself fully of those offenses which have been presented to me." The gracious words of blunted boldness flowed from her tongue with a lilt, sounding more like poetry than defiance. "I would pray for the King's forgiveness for having fallen short of his expectations as a wife, and for your forgiveness, my lords, and for that of God and his son Jesus Christ. The latter will teach me how to die, and will strengthen me against my fate, having walked beside me and held my hand throughout my life and never having abandoned me. Through my counsel with Him I will be bolstered against spiritual failures and will be absolved of my own human weakness. I will prepare myself for death, since I see that is what pleases the king, and will speak nothing against it. As for the men accused and convicted alongside me, I regret deeply that they will die on my account. I would beg that I could suffer death enough to deliver them. Yet again, we are all happy to abide by His Majesty's wishes, knowing that our souls will be transported afterward to paradise. I will find peace in my sentence, and will go willingly to Christ whose judgment alone will determine my fate. I would pray that the Lord's mercy find all of you, and I will continue to pray for your health and salvation, my lords, as well as that of my husband. When the time comes for each of you, I pray that God shows you how to die as He has shown me."

Anne bent at the knee as she had when she'd greeted her peers, hands still clasped, and turned around without having been granted leave. Norfolk opened his mouth as if to call her back but closed it again. Anne started down the stairs from the platform.

The crowd finally exploded with fury, shuffled shouting and expletives so loud and sudden that several of the peers jumped. Norfolk sat motionless.

Riche nudged him, dazedly. "George is immediately next?"

Cromwell nodded. Perhaps that had not been the best decision – this crowd was clearly in favour of the queen, and would likely rise in support of her brother as well – but there was no time to change it now. The peers could not be allowed time to think, to talk. They had to move forward. "They should've gone to get him at verdict. He's probably waiting."

Anne reached the floor of the Hall as the mingled cries of the thousands of witnesses began to meld together: "God save the queen."

Kingston appeared as if from nowhere – Cromwell guessed the gaoler had been standing against the wall near Cromwell's own elevated seat – and moved forward to escort Anne up the aisle. Her guards, Kingston's guards, waited for them at the doors at the back of the court, which led to the outer Hall and eventually outside. Tower guards made a perimeter around the area where the common people stood, forming a clear path for Anne and Kingston as the Londoners' chanting picked up in fury: "God save the queen! God save the queen!"

Accepting Kingston's arm and leaning on it a little, Anne turned her head and murmured something to the gaoler. Kingston drew back, surprised, and shook his head. Anne dipped her head and spoke again, nodding in earnestness. Cromwell could almost make out Kingston's words: _Madam…_

"God save the queen! God save the queen!"

Riche swallowed. "Where is he?"

"I don't…" Cromwell looked over his shoulder to find the deathly stare of Thomas Howard. His eyes were red and watery from watching his niece go. She had already forgotten him, it seemed, but he could not forget her.

"Sir…" Riche tugged him back around. "Master Kingston seems to need you."

Cromwell's heart was pounding, pounding along to that beat: "God save the queen." He looked around in a frenzy, suddenly afraid he had missed his last glimpse of Anne; but no, her feather was still in the Hall. She was halfway up the aisle with Kingston, who was indeed looking over his shoulder, seeking Cromwell.

"Stay here," Cromwell muttered. "Keep things in rights." He bolted from his chair and steeled himself against the real fear of walking between two seas of a thousand people each, every one of them possessing the full knowledge that he was the architect behind this whole pageant. Kingston's guards were a wall, yes; but all it would take was a quick arm with an exposed blade.

Kingston let Anne walk ahead with her guards when they reached the end of the court. With magnificent timing, the outer doors opened and in came George Boleyn, flanked similarly by Tower guards. He, too, was impeccably dressed. His eyes lit up at the sight of his sister, and Cromwell's heart ached. Though the people inside the Hall could not possibly see this scene, their shouting echoed in this big empty space: "God save the Queen!"

"She'll need an escort back," Kingston explained over the din when Cromwell neared. "But I was told to..." he looked toward George, who was approaching, although there was a sizable space between his path and Anne's. "To chaperone each at trial."

"Yes," Cromwell agreed, his mind clicking through ideas the way he had thumbed through the indictments two days before, counting them. Why had he not thought of this detail? He was growing dull, he chided himself. Dull and distracted.

"She's – the Queen has begged to be allowed to see her brother's trial. I told her it was out of the question, but she requested it as a dying woman and I was telling her –"

George's mouth formed Anne's name, silently. He gave her a sad, hopeful smile. She raised one palm as if to wave hello.

"Sir?" Kingston prodded as the siblings passed, each looking over one shoulder for a last face-to-face goodbye.

"Take the Viscount in," Cromwell heard himself saying just before George came into earshot. His blood pounded ever harder in his ears as his gaze slid over Kingston's serious expression, to George's narrowed eyes, to Anne's retreating figure. "There's no time to lose."

With that he was off, leaving behind the shouts of the people of London who burst into cheering when George Boleyn entered with Kingston a moment later. Cromwell turned around to see if he could glimpse Norfolk, alarmed at his own lack of organization, just as two Tower guards slammed the doors to the court resolutely shut.

Cromwell reached the guards that followed Anne and they parted for him. He reached out, not knowing what he was doing, and grasped her elbow. Anne started and whirled around; her feather floated in front of her face, and when it drifted away, there she was. She was real to him again, real in a way that she had not been at the podium, real in a way that she never was in his thoughts and fantasies. She was real. She was Anne.

"Come," he said simply, already hauling her behind him. "Wait here," he threw over his shoulder at the guards, who nodded and dispersed. Anne hurried along behind him, but there was a hesitance in every step and she tried to withdraw her elbow from his grasp. He gripped her tighter through her black sleeves. She said nothing.

They crashed through a door off to one side of the Hall, which had probably not been opened in years. They were ascending a small stone staircase, Anne struggling to keep up, one arm in his grasp, the other clutching her skirts so she wouldn't trip on them. He pulled her quickly behind him, hating himself for his weakness in wanting to show some kindness to her. As if he could earn her forgiveness for what he was doing to her.

She must have known where they were going: a small room, screened tightly, through which one could observe what happened in the court of King's Hall below. The room had been there for centuries; Henry had used it only a few times. This must have been what she had been asking Kingston for, without having said it in as many words. He opened the door at the top of the stairs, which led to a short corridor that twisted around a single corner and ended in the observing room itself. A few chairs huddled around the screen as though someone else had just been watching, but they hadn't. There was one way into this room, high above the court as though it had been built like a mezzanine, and one way out. If she wanted to watch George's trial, if it would give her some solace, some comfort to watch him go through what she'd just endured, he would give it to her. His heart threatened to leap from his throat when they stopped a short distance behind the chairs and he released her arm; he had not thought through the part about being alone with her, not even for a moment.

The arm that had been in his grasp was cradled by the other, crossed over her abdomen. She stood still next to him. Neither of them looked at one another. The cheering of the crowd for George Boleyn was still deafening. One would wonder if he was performing acrobatics to elicit such sustained roaring.

Anne cleared her throat again, making that same noise that said how much effort was required to find her voice. She bowed her head, closed her eyes. He turned toward her. A few tears spilled down her cheeks, even as hearty whistles bounced through the court below, the sound of London cheering for her brother.

"This was what you wanted?" he tried.

She sniffled, pressed a flat palm to her cheek, covering her face from forehead to chin. She wiped away her tears and stood up straighter. It was a gesture that he recognized frighteningly well. No time for pain now, it said. Cry later. Mourn later. Sacrifice nothing. She glanced at him, nodding. "Thank you," she mouthed, and started forward.

Anne chose the middle chair and drew it close to the screen, pressing her face nearly against the tight lattice that would conceal her from view. She leant forward in her chair and he saw that she trembled all over. He would probably be trembling, too. Even her feather seemed defeated, the arc looking more listless now, reaching down toward her back.

Finally the crowds had died down, and the proceedings were about to start. Cromwell had to get back to the court. He would leave the guards outside the door downstairs, and send Kingston after Anne when the verdicts came in. She would know the sentence. She didn't need to stay for that.

In spite of himself, Cromwell took a few silent steps forward and reached out his hand, hovering above Anne's shoulder. He placed his palm against her, hoping he wouldn't startle her, but it felt to him like she was sinking into his touch. Probably a trick of his imagination.

He had thought to never be alone with her again, to never see her near again. Certainly never to touch her again. There was no carnality in his mind at any point in bringing her here, but part of him wanted to somehow atone for their lovemaking, to ask her for absolution for their sin together, as he could certainly not offer that to her. The other part wanted to turn her head and kiss her, just once, selfishly, to kiss her goodbye. He prayed to God to save him from himself, from his increasing helplessness. He didn't want any of this any longer.

Anne must have been able to read his mind. "No," she murmured. Her shaking had stilled.

Cromwell glanced heavenward. Had God willed her to say that? To stay his hand? His lips?

He slid his hand from her shoulder and stepped back, hesitating for a moment before turning and leaving her alone. Rounding the corner, he felt for the dagger under his coat and squeezed its leather pouch, remembering the dream with the serpent, remembering the day in the garden where she had thought he would stab her. He could have killed her just now. He drifted to a stop and ripped the pouch from his belt, opening it and brandishing the knife with feverish movements. His heart was still pounding, faster than ever, the heart of a crazy man. His fingers shook with the blade. He looked back toward the alcove, at the corner that separated them. He held the blade against his own heart. He leant against the wall, breathing deeply, tears running down his face as they had run down Norfolk's face, down Anne's face. He might yet die before she did.

Eventually, Cromwell managed to get the dagger back into its pouch, pouch back onto his belt, this time worse than any of the others. He shook his head with a grim chuckle. He was supposed to manage the kingdom, but he could not even manage himself.

Cromwell tipped his head against the wall and laughed. He wiped his cheeks clean and laughed into the air, into the darkness, this corridor thankfully shielded from the sun. In the dark, he could pretend that this had never happened. And he would.

"Ah," Cromwell shook his head at himself, the exhaustion of being himself threatening to get the better of him. Just a few days more of this, he promised himself as he descended the stairwell, heavy-footed. The guards took up post at the wooden door downstairs and Cromwell joined Kingston at the rear corner of the court, not wanting to interrupt George's trial by resuming his previous seat.

"She's…?" Kingston stared straight ahead.

"Upstairs in the observation room. Fetch her when Norfolk calls for the verdicts."

The gaoler nodded. "A benevolent gesture, sir."

Cromwell shivered, but passed it off as a shrug.

Upstairs, Anne watched her brother listen to the same sorts of ridiculous charges that had just been laid against her. Silent tears slid down her cheeks, despite her promises to herself to remain strong. Her back ached from standing and straining forward in her seat. She wished she could crawl into bed and never get up.

Her hands rested on her lower belly, not rounded but not as flat as usual, tucked snugly into her stomacher. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the last few minutes differently: she, sitting down, cradling her abdomen; Cromwell standing behind her, one hand resting gently on her shoulder. In another world, in another lifetime, it would have been a scene fit for Holbein.

**A/N: Just for the record, since several readers have asked about Cromwell/Anne scenes, yes, I did promise one more "significant" Cromwell/Anne interaction. No, this was not it. Don't forget to review!**


	38. Chapter 38

**A/N: HAPPY NEW YEAR! I wanted desperately to get this out on NYE but it just didn't happen. I'm caught in the blizzard this weekend, and it is 17 below with a great deal of snow outside. So here's our latest chapter, and I'm going to get to work with the next one as soon as this is published =)**

**HALove, I am so, so happy you enjoy the story so much. Your reviews are always so complimentary and of course that is greatly flattering! I wanted to work Henry Percy into the story since I was so bothered when they omitted him from the series entirely. I hope you like this chapter, and if you have any requests or anything for the remainder, of course, let me know. =)**

**Carriebess, welcome! I am so glad to have you aboard, especially as I was so inspired by your own story. Please, please keep reading as you go on… I think there are parts of this story that will really appeal to you. (I realize you might not read this for awhile since you're on the earlier chapters, but I sent you a PM too, and you'll see it eventually!)**

**Alyson, thank you for your specific comments, I really appreciate the time you take to review. I love writing Anne and Cromwell and believe me… there's emotional output for me as a writer. Sometimes I look like a loon in the coffee shop on the verge of tears. HA! We've got a few chapters to go, so I hope you enjoy them =)**

**Hi, Rae, happy new year! I hope you like this chapter too – and if you're into the Borgias yet, let me know and I will recommend a few of my fave videos there too. Confession: any time I get writer's block, I play my favorite dramatic or epic songs and imagine the fan videos that could be made with scenes from my story and my characters LOL. It works like a charm! ;) and apparently I love putting myself through pain while writing… omg, some of these interactions are painful! I think it's because I've been "with" these characters – yes, historical figures, but my own versions of them – and developing them for 4 years now. Knowing Anne's death is coming is actually hard for me as a writer, isn't that ridiculous? PS My job is tough, but amazing… really challenging intellectually which I love. You will find your own happiness too, you just watch and see! And Oklahoma isn't so bad. You guys have produced more Miss Americas than any other state (useless trivia). Enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think, dear!**

i.

15 May

Evening

A soft glow had settled onto Jane Seymour's cheeks as the sun settled into the horizon. She smiled, accepting the wine that Tom handed her. Nicholas Carew was beside him, downing one cup of wine, holding out his hand for the next. Lissie sipped from her goblet, watching her sister over its rim.

"To victory," Carew said jubilantly into the silence that was almost too excited for words. He held up his cup and Tom joined him enthusiastically, sloshing a little of his own drink.

"God's sake, I'm sorry –" Tom began.

Carew grinned. "No matter. Elizabeth, cheers. And Jane, Mistress Jane, please accept my heartiest congratulations. Fair lady."

Jane smiled. "Sir Nicholas, I cannot thank you enough for your support and good cheer. I am eternally in your debt."

"You owe me nothing. Save a kind word for His Majesty's ear, should I ever get into a scrape." He winked at her.

"It would be my honour to repay the favour you have done me."

In the falling twilight, each of them had been looking over their shoulder, waiting for Edward to appear. He had sent word that he'd be at the king's whim all day but they could expect him presently once the verdicts were all in. And trickle in they had: guilty, guilty. Not a single acquittal. May God have mercy on them.

What they had not expected was that the king himself would come lumbering in alongside Edward, an apologetic look on his face and with no announcement of his presence whatsoever.

Jane gasped, a throaty sound, a sound of true shock. "My lord!" she exclaimed, sinking to the ground with her wine still in hand. Lissie watched her skeptically and bobbed a curtsey. No one would notice her anyway.

"Your Majesty," Sir Nicholas greeted Henry, looking quickly around to see if anything was out of sorts. "You are most welcome."

"Forgive the intrusion, please, Sir Nicholas. Tom. Elizabeth." He had crossed the floor of the great parlor. There was a slight limp in his gait, as if he had spent too much of the day sitting and was stiff. His leg had never entirely recovered from January's jousting accident, according to Edward.

Jane remained on the floor. Henry reached her and drew her up, regarded her for a moment, and swiftly kissed her on the mouth. Jane gasped again, against the king's lips this time, and one of his jeweled fingers encircled the back of her skull to press her tighter.

"I could not bear to be apart from you a moment longer," he murmured when they separated. "I pray you longed for me equally."

"More," Jane told him simply.

Tom nudged Edward. "You left Anne?"

Edward actually flinched. "I'll go back tonight," he hissed back.

"Your wife misses you?" Sir Nicholas teased. "It seems mine can't spend enough time away from me. She claims I cause disorder and untidiness in my wake. I wish she'd hurry as she promised."

Edward smiled at Carew, but it did not reach his eyes. "Anne and I have been married just above one year. She's got plenty of time to grow frustrated of my clutter."

"You, cluttered?" Tom snorted.

"I have to agree," the king noted. "While at Wolf Hall, I took note of how organized and carefully arranged your bedchamber was. I was afraid to muss the sheets."

The younger three Seymours exchanged glances. Edward was struggling to keep the careful smile on his face. "My bedchamber, Majesty?"

"Yes, I … I stayed there. I slept there when I stayed overnight." Henry looked around, caught sight of the expressions of the other Seymours, and let out a great bellow. "Oh, God, they didn't tell you? Edward, forgive me." He raised both palms in mock supplication. "I swear to the Almighty. I mussed none of your possessions."

"My home is yours, Sire. Of course your choice of where to sleep takes precedence over all. I simply did not know that that was where you had stayed."

"It was Lissie's idea," Tom said suddenly.

She bit her lip. "Because of the windows!" she defended shrilly. "The windows in the east! His Majesty had a mind for breathing country air, and so I suggested he might like the windows in your bedchamber…"

"And I did. I so enjoyed them, and the fresh air was a balm to my soul. Edward, thank you for that privilege." Henry winked at Elizabeth, clearly enjoying the role of being her champion, and most clearly enjoying partaking in this Seymour family conversation.

"The privilege is mine, Majesty. Mine indeed." He glanced at Lissie out of the corner of one eye as he turned to accept wine from Carew.

The six of them managed to avoid discussion of the queen, of her lovers, of their deaths. They made merry with jokes and a series of card games; then, one by one, the party began to retire to their beds. Midnight came and passed and they had had too much wine. In spite of Carew's insistence that Henry and Edward must stay overnight, the gentlemen maintained that they must return to Greenwich. The king, although he would not say as much, was waiting for the Thames traffic to dissipate before they would journey back; Edward glanced at the moon every so often, visibly agitated. Lissie guessed that he had told Anne he would be back sooner.

Carew and Tom drank the most of the six and were led, foaming at the mouth with apologies to the king and their party, to their respective beds. Lissie had grown heavy-lidded as well and tried to catch Jane's eye, to somehow signal her to end the visit with Henry, but Jane was oblivious. Her dimples appeared every time the king looked her way. They sat nestled together on a great seat near the fire; Lissie made do with a smaller, primmer sofa halfway across the parlor. From her seat, she watched Henry and Jane examining her hands, with Henry's fingers probing at one particular finger while they murmured and smiled at one another. Lissie imagined they were discussing her wedding ring. Certainly he would have a new one made for her, to her fancy. Whatever his sweetheart wanted.

Jane pressed one hand to her heart while Henry still held the other. She brought her lips close to the king's ear and whispered into it, the king's expression telling Lissie she must be spinning flattery, soft words of love and promise.

Edward dropped into the seat next to Lissie with an ill-concealed sigh.

"You should get back to your love," she taunted him sleepily.

His eyes were dark and clear – the thought occurred to her now: was this still Edward's first cup of wine? – as he threw her a serious glance. "Should I?"

She tried to muster the same coldness. "Your wife."

"Ah," he whispered. "But I mustn't tear the king from his love."

Jane had settled into the king's embrace, one of his arms tucking her close against his body. Together they observed his fingers now, splayed, and it looked as though he was telling her about the different rings he wore. Perhaps this one was his father's, and that one, an Italian ruby, courtesy of Cromwell. _This one? Oh. One of the jewels that I gave to Katherine as a love token. I had it re-set for my own pleasure when I forced her to give everything back._

Lissie chuckled into the near-empty goblet, holding it to her lips to disguise the laugh. Edward nudged her. "My bedchamber?"

"I was trying to please him. The sunset is beautiful from there."

He nodded, accepting her explanation.

"What time is it?" she asked a few minutes later, afraid she'd just dozed off although she remained sitting upright. Actually, she realized, she'd slumped against the back of the sofa.

Edward rubbed his eyes. "Nearly one o'clock."

"Should we…" she looked over to her sister and the king and was stunned to see their lips touching, softly, but firmly. Henry's free hand twined with Jane's, palm to palm. He locked their fingers together. Jane leaned into his touch, into his kiss. Lissie wondered how many cups of wine Jane had had.

"Should we what?" Edward replied under his breath, watching the spectacle too. Henry moved cautiously, kissed Jane gently. After a hesitation Jane parted her lips and let the king kiss her open mouth. In surprise, Henry pulled Jane a little closer yet, and graced her with a slow kiss of pleasure. A low sigh of arousal floated through the air, vibrating in Lissie's bones.

She turned to answer Edward, and as if on cue, he turned toward her in that moment too. Lissie licked her lips. "Should we, I meant should you, just," she cleared her throat. "Just stay here for the night?"

He swallowed and gave her a long look. "I cannot. I must go back to Greenwich."

Lissie nodded. Their eyes held one another. "To your love – your wife," she corrected.

"My wife. My love," Edward agreed in a whisper.

She forced herself to look away, feeling gooseflesh spread over her body and a merciless chill stealing up her spine. "I should go to my bed."

"Yes. Yes, indeed, you should. Should I walk with you?"

Lissie's eyes danced in spite of her fatigue. "I can find my way," she teased, putting her cup down and picking herself up out of the seat.

"Ah, but if I go with you and leave the room, perhaps it will shock certain people back to this world," he countered, rising and offering her his arm. Noiselessly they left the parlor and traversed Carew's Great Hall. "I cannot help but laugh. His Majesty insists he be chaperoned with Jane, yet he's willing to assault her with his mouth despite our presence?"

"Soon," Lissie paused as another chill passed over her, "we shall have to live under that rule no longer."

"Soon, we shall have a new set of rules."

She chuckled into her palm, too much weight on Edward's arm. Her eyes were trying to shut. "But we shall keep the old set, too."

Edward smirked but she could tell he failed to understand what she meant. "Of course. Well, not that one. But some."

They crossed the threshold to the entranceway and the great staircase loomed before them. "Some," Lissie agreed, a single word, a single whisper. "I'll go up alone. Go back to the lovers." She removed her arm from Edward's and walked around him to mount the first few steps.

He held fast to her fingers and she swung around to face him, leaning over the banister. She stood slightly above him. "Sometimes I wish to choose the rules."

"And you will. You're soon to be the king's brother, we his family with you at its head. You will be making all the decisions, not that you do not already –"

"No." He tugged her closer. In the darkness, and with her sleepiness, his face loomed close. She could have bitten his nose, and for a moment she childishly imagined doing so. "I wish we made the rules."

Her brow wrinkled for a moment, her lips about to repeat the assurance she'd just given him, before she caught his reference. "Oh, you wish we made the rules. You wish _we_ did. No…"

Lissie broke off, yawning. Edward was silent and still.

"Ahhh," she finished the yawn noisily. "No, no. It is not that you wish we made the rules. It is that you wish we were the lovers, not they."

His lips parted in shock. They were still so close, so close that she could have bitten. Or kissed.

She waited a moment, and when he did not respond, Lissie stood up and slipped her fingers from his. "Goodnight," she called softly as she ascended the stairs.

Over an hour later, when Edward finally poured himself into bed beside his wife, his love, his heart was pounding.

"Mmmmmm," Anne pouted, feeling the coldness of his hands and nose. "God, what time is it?"

"Do not ask, and do not ask me in the morning what time I got in." He buried his face in her hair. "I'm sorry."

She acquiesced and wrapped her warmth around him. "I know. It is not your fault."

Edward sighed as his wife blew puffs of hot air on each ear and cheek, warming him. "No," he agreed. "I do not make the rules."

"Not yet," Anne murmured sleepily. He closed his eyes and did not respond.

ii.

May 16

Midday

"She's not guilty," Madge protested. "How could this have happened? She is not guilty."

"Of course she is not." Mary Shelton concurred, for once without a rolling of her eyes. Her gaze was sober and steady as she stared over her the shoulder of her sister, looking at nothing but the wall.

Nan's eyes ticked between the two of them. "We knew this was coming," she offered. "We knew she would not be acquitted."

"But in such grand fashion?" Madge replied, her tone as deadened as her sister's.

"If Master Cromwell must topple a queen, he must do so with enough pomp to make the whole pageant credible." Bess Dormer's voice was small but sure. She and Nan shared a true women's look: mutual understanding and mistrust.

Now Mary chuckled. "That part follows reason."

"The rest does not," Madge maintained. The past fortnight, it seemed, had made seasoned courtiers of all Anne's waiting ladies excepting Madge. When the reports of the verdicts had trickled in yesterday, the elder Shelton's reaction to each would have one believe that she was new to politics.

"Can we really be surprised in the least?" Nan replied, using the collective when she really meant to refer to Madge. "When we offered testimony against her at the start?"

"Coercion…" Madge mumbled.

Bess sat down on the bed the Sheltons shared. The ladies had been roaming about the court, the cluster of them meeting in different bedchambers or galleries, wandering the gardens, but never venturing from royal grounds. The current state of things was too unsettled to take any chances. None of them wanted to spend time in the queen's bedchamber or apartments, and so they did not, other than to ensure that things were in proper order there.

"Coercion, yes," Bess agreed. "But testimony was wrought from each of us nonetheless."

Madge turned to face the others then, twisting in her chair and gripping its back. "What if…" she paused. "What if I went to the king?"

Bess straightened; Nan swiveled on her stool near the window. Mary Shelton took a tiny step back. No one spoke.

"Well?" Madge prodded eventually. "If I went to the king, and explained…"

"Explained what?" Nan cut in harshly.

"Explained… told him that we were all driven to speak against the queen –"

"Accuse Cromwell of coercion?"

Madge glared at her sister's protest. "It is true, isn't it?"

"Such an accusation would avail you nothing, except the displeasure of king and secretary alike. Are you so desperate to be separated from me? That you'd like to join the others in the Tower?" Mary argued with a hard edge in her voice.

"The king…"

Bess shook her head. "The king is the seed of this monstrosity, Madge, please tell me you understand that. Cromwell would have us believe it's his own doing, but without the king's sincerest wish to be rid of her, these things would never have come to pass."

"But she isn't guilty," Madge tried again, the objection meek.

"The king does not know that." Bess' response was firm.

Nan turned back toward the window, speaking as she gazed outside. The way the queen used to. "He very possibly may," she pointed out. "And it hardly matters at all to him."

Defeated, Madge sank in her chair. At least she was not crying yet. She had not cried yet today. That was a victory.

"He's a monster," Madge murmured sorrowfully.

Bess shook her head. "He's a king."

Mary ran her hands over her sister's loose hair; it seemed that with every passing day, the ladies' zeal for maintaining the queen's standards waned. With the exception, of course, of Nan. Madge's hair had grown long and hung over the back of the chair; she sighed at the comforting touch of Mary's hands. The younger Shelton bent her head and spoke to the top of her sister's head. "He is a man."

iii.

"But she isn't guilty," Boleyn asserted with a low thread of desperation audible in his voice. "Surely he will not burn her?"

His brother-in-law, Thomas Howard, glowered back at him. The duke looked like he had not slept and was badly in need of a shave. "She's been found guilty, Thomas. They all have."

Boleyn snapped his fingers impatiently at Norfolk, his behaviour impressively imperious for a man committed to the Tower of London on a vague charge involving 'suspicion of treason.' "Never mind that – she is not guilty, and everyone knows it. Most of all that snake Cromwell. Surely he will intervene with the king if it comes to that? Surely… he won't…"

"You think," Norfolk ground out each syllable individually, slowly, with great effort, "that Cromwell cares for her comfort in dispatch? You think he wishes to avoid cruelty? Have you been asleep for the past month?"

"His end is achieved already. She is removed. She is condemned. He must show mercy."

Boleyn's unwavering gaze met the strained eyes of Norfolk. "To speak thus is to liken Cromwell's ability to grant mercy to that of the king. Cromwell is not in a position of sufficient authority to grant such an appeal, were she to even request it."

"And has she?"

"As far as I know, which is about a finger's length, she has been approached by no one to discuss any matter of politics. And has initiated no such contact. She keeps to herself."

Boleyn blinked and dropped his eyes, faltering for the first time. "I hear her laughing."

"At what?"

The earl shrugged. "And crying."

Norfolk waited for his brother-in-law to meet his eyes. "Have you cried?"

A sickening smirk enveloped Boleyn's features, a smirk that made Norfolk notice for the first time that Thomas Boleyn looked a little unwell himself. "I am not present enough to weep, Thomas. I'll weep when it all breaks over my head, or perhaps I will break with it."

"I forgot that Wyatt was about. Have you been taking poetry lessons?" Norfolk's lips curled in disgust.

Boleyn shrugged, that infuriating expression lingering on his face. "You and I, Thomas, we are not so different. Although I know you prefer to think yourself superior on all facets."

"This is not about –"

"But it is, it is. You would dismiss me as a genuine being, and think yourself grand for taking me to task. Yet as you put it not so long ago, my house has burned down, and it's taken my children with it. I am sick with breathing the smoke, and numb from the flames scorching me. You may speak of the Howards' poor decision at Bosworth until you run out of breath. Your house has never burnt like this. How am I to grasp such a loss? I shall have nothing before we are through. Nothing but Elizabeth, if she will still have me. Which possibility is not probable. And perhaps my life, even less probable."

Norfolk exhaled. "You've still got Mary."

Boleyn raked a hand through his unkempt hair. "No. I haven't had Mary for years now."

"Perhaps now you'll see clear to the path to changing that," Norfolk suggested.

"I…" Boleyn shook his head and looked up. "I would not have anything to do with me, were I either one of them."

The duke tried to smile. "They are women. Perhaps they are made of better stock than you or I."

There was a long silence while the earl opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed. "Anne certainly is."

"Yes. She is." Norfolk nodded.

"So you've come," Boleyn continued hastily, "to inform me of the fates of my children as far as present circumstances dictates, yes?"

"Yes."

"And so you have. Have any charges been presented against me yet?"

"No. And I would not expect that any should."

Boleyn's smile was wide and feline. "Expectation means nothing to me at this juncture. And would you, brother, kindly keep me astride of any development in these proceedings?"

Norfolk raised his eyebrows. "Are you dismissing me? From your cell?"

"I expect you have other tasks to pursue," Boleyn murmured, looking absent again. "I thank you your attention to my burning house."

"Not ashes yet," Norfolk replied as he turned toward the door.

The earl closed his eyes, unseen by the duke, and leant his head against the wall. "I care not. I only wish that my children be spared the flames."

iv.

Early Evening

"Guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty." Anne repeated to herself over and over, until the word was meaningless on her tongue.

She thought of how the word related to other words: _rainy_. If a day was rainy, it meant that an ordinary day had been accosted with rain. _Snowy_. If a hill was snowy, it meant that an ordinary hill had been covered with snow.

"So then, guilt-y," she sounded out to herself. _Guilty._ She was an ordinary woman who had been accosted and covered with guilt. The guilt had been applied to her, rather than she seeking it out. It had been poured over her like rain, blanketed her like snow, drowning her and choking her as if someone had filled her lungs with fluid.

She could accept this version of guilty, she decided.

And guilty she was. Not of the charges that had been laid against her at trial, of course, and she was pleased at the way she'd defended herself. In spite of the circumstances a thrill of joy had surged through her at the sensation of thousands of Londoners at her back, supporting her, cheering her. She'd almost wanted to throw a grin in Cromwell's direction. Almost.

But indeed, she was filled with a guilt of her own, she was not innocent; she'd committed many sins and deserved the death that had been assigned to her, as she had honestly told the jurors who had condemned her. She deserved to die and she would. Just not for the charges they thought. She understood all of this, and she saw the Lord's presence in these events, guiding what seemed to any honest earthly being to be a blazing miscarriage of justice, when truthfully it was better than what she deserved.

There were two questions of guilt, two applications of guilty, the way Anne saw it. The first was the false cloak of guilt that had been given to her, and the second was her own. She accepted both, each for what it was to her: the former, her penance, her punishment for the latter. And it fit that she should bear the horrors of this sentence and judgment for the second guilt, the one that she embodied, the evidence of which grew in her body even now as she sat embroidering a linen square in silence at twilight, had been her own doing and her own choice. It had not been applied to her or bestowed upon her. She had chosen this path and now she would pay for it.

The back of her hand rested on her belly, keeping the mostly blank handkerchief spread flat for her needle and thread. She had only brought a small embroidery kit with her, but luckily, it contained a few spools of black thread. She'd been working for most of the afternoon on this handkerchief, after spending the morning largely in prayer.

Anne smiled to herself. Her life, ironically, resembled that of a nun.

She glanced down, although her hand and linen covered her torso. Well, not all parts of her life resembled that of a nun.

When she closed her eyes, she could feel Cromwell's palm on her shoulder, those few moments where he had stood behind her in the observing room. Should she have turned and spoken to him? Had he wished to speak to her? She could hardly imagine what they might say to one another now, yet she would lie to claim that she did not think of him frequently. She'd been desperate that he not stay near her, for his presence frightened and comforted her in such a difficult mixture that she felt hysterical just from the few minutes they had been together. She'd wanted to turn and grasp at his coat with one hand, just pull him closer to have him stand behind her, just for a little while. Yet the relief that overwhelmed her at his departure had told her that she was not thinking clearly. And indeed, how could she be? How could anyone be?

That would probably be the last time she was ever close enough to speak to him, she comforted herself. She would not have to endure such a feeling again. He would no doubt attend her execution, on Henry's orders if for no other reason. She hoped there was no other reason. She hoped he would not take pleasure in seeing her die. She would try, she promised herself, to avoid looking into the crowd when the time came. She would try to die with the knowledge that he would regret her death at least a little, in some way. She would try not to pick his face out of the crowd. It would be easier if she could fool herself into thinking he was not there. And it would only need to be for a minute, anyway.

One of her maids, not having known she was awake, had speculated to the others that Henry might decide to send her to an abbey instead of going through with the execution. The other girls had debated the possibility, one insisting the king would not waver for his pride was damaged and he would have blood for it; the other, revealing she suspected the same as the first. _It's all, really,_ the latter had suggested, _in the hands of Master Secretary Cromwell._

_D'you not think he will want her dead?_ the first had asked curiously.

The second had cut in. _Master Cromwell will not make such a decision. It will come from the king, and the king will make an example, you shall see._

_An example to future wives?_ the third had sniggered.

A short silence. _An example to anyone who would dare betray him. Like Wolsey and More before her. And this betrayal is far more personal._

_But he does like to show his munificence_, the first one had pointed out.

_Not here._

_I maintain that the king might change his mind. Send her to a nunnery somewhere._

_Not after what she's been convicted of, I promise you._

A hushed laugh. _Are you a lawyer now?_

_And d'you know? The fact that matters least of all, somehow, is that she is not guilty. And everyone knows it._

_Everyone but the king._

_Would that we could hear his heart of hearts. I would wager my life that he knows it too._

Anne had smiled at that – at least these maids, whatever their names, which she had still not committed squarely to her now-fickle memory, had faith in her innocence. Of course, they were wrong. But they had no way of knowing that.

For they did not know about her new interpretation of guilt, with its two meanings sharp like a double-edged sword. Sharp like the needle she slipped through her linen, embroidering her handkerchief, spools of black thread perched on a table beside her, waiting patiently for her to unravel them. Waiting for death, like little ravens. Hop, hop, hop.

v.

Evening

Tom met her eyes in the mirror as he adjusted his cap endlessly. A tiny nudge this way, a slight push the other way. Fluff the feather, tuck it in further, pull it out so its plume was longer. He really should have been a woman.

"What do you mean, tasteless?"

Lissie shrugged with one shoulder and looked into the dark wine in her cup. Sir Nicholas had an extensive wine collection and she had been making her way through his recommendations in the past few days. This was some sort of mulberry something or other, aged with charred oak. She'd have to come up with a new way of describing it to him when he asked her how she liked it. The man had very developed taste, it seemed, in comparison with her opinion that all wine tasted fairly well the same. "They were all tried and sentenced yesterday, and the men will be executed tomorrow. Victory for us or no, does this not seem like an inappropriate time for a celebration?"

"Don't think of it as a celebration, then. Think of it as a reception. A small gathering of friends and family." His eyes had drifted back to his own reflection, dismissing her discomfiture as inferior to the appearance of his cap.

"Mmm," she replied noncommittally.

Anne Stanhope peeped her head around Lissie's open door. "What are we to do? I'm uncertain."

Lissie chuckled. "Come in, then. Join me in uncertainty, or join Tom in preening."

"I've preened enough for all of us in the past few weeks," Anne admitted, sitting on the edge of Lissie's bed. "There is very little to do when one is alone at court."

"I would not know. I am never alone anywhere."

Tom turned his head and narrowed his eyes at his sister. "Are you a wilting flower then, Lissie? Too much wine already?" She just shrugged again.

"Elizab – " Jane crossed the threshold before seeing who else was in the room. "So this is where everyone is. Why was I not invited?"

"No one was," Anne clarified. "Each of us has intruded on Lissie's bedchamber."

"What a charming hostess," Jane teased, eyes tracing over the slack posture and wine goblet that were becoming customary for her younger sister.

Chuckling himself, Tom set to tugging at the exposed fabric in his slashed sleeves. "Her bedchamber is right at the top of the stairs, that's all."

"Poor Edward went down already." Anne shook her head. "He missed the invitation entirely."

Jane glanced at Lissie; the sisters made eye contact and then mutually looked away. "Pity."

"And who else is here?" Lissie asked.

Tom shrugged, and immediately started fussing with the shoulders of his jacket. "Carew knows everyone in the kingdom. It's anyone's guess. But I expect we will be few tonight; only those whose discretion Carew trusts."

"Will his wife ever arrive?" Jane wondered.

"Probably still packing. We were all but whipping the three of you, yet it still took half a day to prepare for a short trip." Jane came over and adjusted the back of his jacket, straightening the seams and smoothing his collar. "Shall we go?"

"I suppose." Jane shrugged over his shoulder. "Cannot hide out forever. We are not upstairs at Wolf Hall."

Tom started out of the room, and the ladies fell in step behind him. "No. Those days are gone."

Indeed, Tom was correct: the gathering was small and the company was comprised of Carew's closest associates. In other words, it was a party of religious conservatives and a large proportion of the king's former intimates.

Edward was making polite conversation with Ursula Stafford, wife of Henry Stafford, brother-in-law to the Duke of Norfolk. He caught sight of his own wife and siblings entering Carew's Great Hall, brilliantly festooned in glittering draped fabric in various shades of red and gold, and made his way over to escort Jane. "Were you all holed up somewhere without me?" he chided.

Jane smiled steadily at him. "We were indeed. Lissie's bedroom. Shame you missed it." She laid her arm on his. Watching her brother carefully, Lissie saw that he flinched at her remark.

When Carew caught sight of the cluster of Seymours, he clapped his hands loudly and a hush fell over the two dozen or so people gathered in his home. "Please give a warm welcome to our guest of honour – the most lovely, virtuous, and pious Lady Jane Seymour."

A rainfall of applause poured out then, to which Jane flushed and curtseyed, holding it until the clapping ceased. "I am so humbled and honoured to be your guest, Sir Nicholas. You have been the most wonderful host. And I am doubly honoured to join all of you here, on this night." She bent at the knee again and nodded deeply.

Jane was sucked into the crowd almost immediately, with various lords wanting to get to know the woman they recognized as their next queen. Carew squeezed Edward's shoulder and spoke into his ear. Lissie read his lips: "She is ready."

Edward smiled as if it was his accomplishment. He took Anne and together they entered the sea of fine jackets and caps.

Carew found her next. "Elizabeth, did you enjoy the mulberry?"

"Oh – it was such a deep flavour," she nodded. "A pleasing mixture of tastes, indeed."

He smiled down at her. "I am pleased it pleased you," he murmured. "And does this please you?" One hand swept through the air, indicating the entire Great Hall.

She fumbled for an appropriate response. "It is not meant for my enjoyment, sir."

He held her gaze, in a way that Tom did, in a way that Edward did, but still in a way all his own. "How can you be sure?"

"I… it does please me, of course." She smiled back up, feeling a little flutter in her stomach in spite of herself.

"Then I am pleased. I could not enjoy myself if I did not know that you had been pleased at the first."

"Is it so?"

He still held her gaze, but somehow he was not staring. She matched his steadfastness. "D'you not believe me?"

Lissie blinked. She felt her cheeks grow pink with the thrill of what she recognized as flirtation. "I might. I shall have to evaluate."

"Do." Carew's eyes sparkled. "And please, tell me anything I may do to help convince you." She thought he might wink, but he turned away and was gone. She knew this certainly for flirtation, now, because she left the conversation completely confused about what they were discussing.

Within two minutes, a page approached her with a small gilded tray, scarcely large enough for a few goblets of wine. He held it out to her. There was one goblet only, sitting off center, as though it had been part of a pair and someone had snatched the other.

"Oh, no, thank –"

"Compliments of Master Carew. He insists." The page bowed at the waist, yet the tray did not move.

Elizabeth's heartbeat quickened and without meaning to, she glanced around for Edward. Later, when she reflected on it, she would realize that in that moment she'd recognized that Edward had been right about Carew. Then she plucked the goblet from the tray.

"Master Carew has this wine brewed once per year, squeezing the oil from the roses of the end of the season. He produces only a jug or two per annum. Two goblets were poured tonight, for this special occasion." The page bowed again and moved away, and there, directly behind him and now unmistakably in her line of vision, was Sir Nicholas. He grinned and held up his wine goblet, toasting her from across the room. Lissie raised her own cup and smiled as she took a sip. The taste was truly floral, deep and heady and romantic. This was lover's wine.

Carew raised his eyebrows at her: _what do you think?_

Feeling that thrill again, Lissie simply smiled and turned away. She felt his eyes on her back as she slid into the crowd and stood listening to but not really hearing a conversation between Henry and Gregory Pole.

The rose wine was gone within a quarter hour; she found it addicting, smooth on the tongue and down the throat. She could drink the whole jug, she thought.

But there was other wine, and tonight, she was thirsty. She was thirsty for wine a lot recently. Edward and Tom both caught her eye on different occasions while she got a fresh cup from a page or from a table.

"You all right?" Edward asked her under his breath as she passed him in the crowd.

"Better than all right," she replied, sliding away before he could question her further. Her cheeks were warm with drink and the Great Hall was warm, so after midnight – when, to her slight dismay, the gathering showed no signs of ending – she slipped through one of the doors to the riverside and stole around the shrubbery to the fountain that bubbled softly in the moonlight.

Her surprised reaction was milder than it should have been, both because she'd been drinking and because she had expected it, but she managed to look startled when Carew rounded the low wall of bushes and came upon her at the fountain.

"Mistress Seymour, alone in the darkness?"

She smiled. "Just for a moment. Too warm in the Hall."

He kept his distance, swirling the wine in his goblet. "Should I ask everyone to leave, then?"

Lissie threw her head back and laughed. "Every last one."

"Done. Please, tell me you enjoyed the wine."

"All of it. All the types that I tried. Finished now, at last." She held up her hands to show him they were empty, and then used them to ease herself back onto the edge of the fountain's basin.

"Indeed? And the rose?"

"Exquisite," she enunciated. "The best wine I have ever had."

Hesitantly, Carew took a step forward. "You would say, then, that it pleased you?"

"Immensely."

"Thank God," he sighed. "Now I can finally drink it."

Lissie's mouth dropped open. "Is that the same goblet you had earlier?"

His brow wrinkled; she saw it in the moonlight. "Did my boy not tell you? Only two goblets were poured tonight. This is mine."

"And you've held it all night without drinking?"

"I told you," Carew said with a smile, "I could not take my pleasure until I knew you'd had yours. You never told me how you liked the rose wine, so I was bound to my word not to indulge." They both paused a moment. He took another step closer to her, mutually smiling. "May I drink now? Have I pleased you?"

"You have," Lissie laughed gently. "You may. Savour it; do not be greedy as I was."

Carew took a long sip and looked to be savouring it indeed. "The lady appreciates fine wine."

"Not all," she admitted. "My tastes are not as sophisticated as yours; but any fool would appreciate the quality of this one."

"You must partake again, then." He held out the goblet to her, still a discreet distance away.

She grinned. "No, no. You mustn't indulge my greed."

Carew paused and his face grew serious. "Someone must indulge you."

Elizabeth's face lost its smile too. "Oh?" He nodded.

"May I?" he indicated the space next to her on the lip of the fountain.

She moved aside as though she needed to make room, as though the fountain's edge was not wide enough for the both of them. Carew sat a respectable distance away, nearly enough room for another person to sit between them, and held out the wine again. "Would you not care for another sip?"

"It is not necessary…" she breathed, holding him in her gaze.

"Allow necessity no right," he insisted. Lissie smiled again, a little hesitantly, and took the goblet. She sipped the rose wine, inhaling the floral aroma and taste which were somehow distinct from one another but equally delicious. "Is my cup as pleasing?"

"Even better than I remembered."

Carew smiled with satisfaction and took the goblet back when she indicated. He sipped it too, savouring it, but continued to look at her. "I am glad you came here, Elizabeth Seymour."

This night was balmy, warmer than most had been this spring. But perhaps the several cups of wine she'd swallowed had to do with her warmth. She allowed herself a yawn; the tradition of late nights and tense days was not familiar to her. "As am I, Sir Nicholas."

"Nicholas, please." He took another sip of the wine.

Lissie chuckled. "I am not close enough to you to call you by your first name, sir."

"No?" He arched his eyebrows, causing his forehead to fill with horizontal lines, the attractive wrinkles of a man who laughed and smiled often. He stood and moved a step closer to her before sitting back down. "And now?"

She laughed out loud, again with abandon. Oh, if Edward could see this, she thought.

"I only meant," she explained, "that your station is far superior to mine and I am uncomfortable calling a man of your stature by his first name."

"You mustn't think of me as superior, but as a friend – an ally. An associate."

"Are we to be partners in some business venture, then?"

Sir Nicholas looked at the ground for a moment, then back at her. "I enjoy you, Elizabeth."

She blinked a few times. "You enjoy me, Sir Nicholas? I am not certain what you mean."

"I think you do." It was barely above a whisper.

_You are married,_ she told him silently. Instead, her tongue formed a different sentence: "Indeed, I think I do."

"I would not ask…" he looked away again, as if embarrassed. "I will not ask whether you find me enjoyable, but I have hope that you do. And if you do not, then I have hope that you might yet grow to."

Lissie cleared her throat, that same thrill coursing through her. The same thrill that had touched her so intimately when she had been pressed between Thomas Cromwell and a stone wall, lips melded together, when he'd had what must have been his life's only moment of weakness and taken her in his arms. She'd propositioned Cromwell with the idea of marriage; and now Sir Nicholas seemed ready to proposition her with something. "What would you ask of me, sir?"

He started. "Ask of you?"

"Surely you thought not to tell me this with no result. You must have sought to honour your words in some way, or cause me to honour them. What is it that you'd ask of me?"

"Elizabeth Seymour," he replied after a long pause, "I would not have thought you so direct."

She smiled. "I meant no disrespect…"

"And you leveled none. I suppose I am used to a great deal more simpering. You are not your sister."

"No," she agreed. "You needn't use my surname to address me, sir."

Now Carew grinned. "Ah, but she will not call me by my own name. The lady writes her own rules."

An inelegant burst of laughter bubbled from Lissie's lips. Carew could not know of her discussion with Edward the previous night. "No, no, my lord, I write no rules," she assured him, and herself, though only the latter caught her reference. Still laughing, Lissie leant on her palm and moved herself closer to Carew's side, closing the distance between them almost entirely. She smiled up in the moonlight. "There, now we are close. I shall call you Nicholas, and you shall call me Elizabeth; does that please you, sir?"

"Does it please you?" His dark smiling eyes drank her in.

"Yes. Now you?" Never had she experienced flirtation like this. She could understand now why court ladies found it difficult to keep their wits about them; perhaps she'd never noticed before because every man at court seemed to lavish his focus on Queen Anne.

"It does please me. Elizabeth." He enunciated her name, making it a soft caress, a sensual murmur almost. He pressed the goblet into her hand. "And it would please me to have you finish the rose wine."

"If it would please you, Nicholas," she replied, taking the last sip.

Without warning, his hand rested against her cheek. One thumb brushed her lips. "Spilt a drop."

Their eyes were on each other. "Did I?" she whispered.

He traced the delicate bow at the middle of her upper lip. "No."

Lissie's hand shook a little as she passed the goblet back to him. "Sir Nicholas…"

"Elizabeth Seymour?" he cut her off teasingly. He straightened, putting space between them, and the tension dissipated.

"I cannot be your mistress."

"Of course not," he agreed. "Nor would I ask you to be."

Again, she blinked in confusion, wondering if the wine or her own dull wit was clouding her. "What are you asking of me, then?"

"Let me enjoy you, and enjoy me. We…" he started a bit then, and cleared his throat. "Have you given any further thought to the paintings of the Christ's passion that I showed you? I still plan to make a gift of one of them to your sister, if you deem either one worthy."

Lissie faltered. "I… I hadn't thought about it, truthfully. Perhaps I should look at them again. I have not given it much thought, I'm afraid. I apologize…"

Suddenly she became aware of another presence, a third person. Carew's eyes had twitched to look at something to the right of her. Lissie turned and felt only minor shock – again probably due to too much to drink – at the sight of Edward standing still in the shadows where the wall of shrubbery ended and opened toward the fountain.

She tried to smile at him. "Brother," she greeted.

"Sister." A steady smile was on his lips. "It's late. We were worried about where you'd gone."

Carew gave Edward one of those lazy grins. "No need to fear – she is perfectly safe. We've just been talking."

The smile never wavered. "What a comfort."

Turning back to Lissie as though to finish an academic conversation, Carew continued: "If you wish to look again at the paintings, feel free to do so. They are still in the library downstairs." In a voice low enough that Edward could not decipher the words, he added, "Adjacent to my study."

He stood and bowed to Lissie and then to Edward, excusing himself.

As soon as Carew had disappeared, Lissie met Edward's eyes, faint glittering points in the moon-washed garden. "Scold and whip me, now?" she teased.

Her brother rubbed his eyes. "What am I to think? With the two of you disappeared?"

"Just talking," she shrugged.

"About paintings, I am sure." Edward snorted. "Promise me you will be cautious."

She stood up. "Step lightly?"

"Prudent," he amended.

"When have I not been?" The words were out of her mouth before she realized the folly, before she remembered how stubbornly she had stood beside Anne Boleyn. It felt like years ago. Edward and Elizabeth mutually ignored that question. "Is it not prudent to forge a friendship with a man who is our host and ally?"

Sighing, Edward beckoned her with one hand and they started back toward the house. "He is too fickle, Lissie, I told you that."

She nodded, biting her lip where Carew had touched her. She'd rarely been touched there.

"And anyway," Edward continued, an edge to his voice, "the man is not a priest. I would wager he wants more than friendship."

"I will be careful." The vow was a murmur. "Prudent."

Not touching, the siblings rounded the corner and the grand glowing expanse of Carew's house came into view. "This stage will be over soon, and things will change. And we will all be happy."

Lissie paused on the step above him, just as she had last night when they'd abandoned Jane and the king in the parlor. _You wish that we were the lovers, not they._ "I hope so," she told him. "But we'll have to keep being prudent, will we not?"

Edward glanced down and back up. His expression was a mixture of hurt and guilt. "Yes."

She nodded minutely, feeling slightly off-balance standing on the narrow step. Now she beckoned her brother and he offered her his arm so they could go back inside. "Ever prudent," she said softly. The party was finally winding down; a number of courtiers had already departed. Carew was just inside, talking animatedly with Jane and Tom. He dutifully did not look at Lissie or Edward.

Finally, the Seymours took their leave as a group. Lissie curtseyed to Carew last, glancing sideways to make sure Edward was not watching. "Goodnight, Nicholas," she whispered. She searched his face for any secret, any recognition, and her heart fluttered when he gave her a small smile and a wink.

He quickly reverted to Carew the Cordial Host. "Goodnight. Elizabeth," he whispered. He looked around, too, to be sure they were safe. None of her family members were in earshot. "Remember, your opinion is required presently on those paintings. I must get the chosen one out of sight and choose a corresponding Bible to complete the gift."

"In the library?" It was more of a statement. Their eyes remained connected. Lissie barely restrained herself from grinning.

"Yes." He squeezed her hand and kissed the back of it chastely. "Adjacent to my study.

**A/N: OH MAN! Heehee. This Carew storyline is running amok, but don't worry, I'll reel it in.**

**Review, if you would be so good. 3 more chapters – maybe 4 – and then the epilogue. It's almost over, I can hardly believe it.**


	39. Chapter 39

**A/N: I'm back! After 2 painfully long months of not updating (and not being able to set aside a night to write in all that time), I'm back with another chapter. I hope you all like this one – it's a bit transitional and I'm not sure the writing is my best, but it serves its purpose and this is a tough part of the story to write.**

**Leaderofpancakes, welcome and WOW! You read the whole thing in just 2 days? Kudos! It's quite long and that's an impressive feat. So pleased you are enjoying it, and I hope you enjoy this installment too.**

**Carriebess, Thank you for your reviews on the earlier chapters. I hope you are still with us and enjoying the progression =)**

**Rae, the Carew storyline explodes in this chapter so buckle your safety belt ;) And I refer to it as Seymourcest too, I guess we've coined that term. I hope you do like it, as I certainly do, and there's more to come. When it comes to dressing down the reactions of Anne's loved ones to her fall, your guess is as good as mine, but I have to say that those scenes tend to write themselves. The dialogue between Norfolk and Boleyn last chapter flowed through my brain to my fingertips with little to no effort at all. Perhaps I'm just imagining how family members of my own might talk about such a thing, and drawing from the experience that everyone has skeletons in their closet? I think that means I should probably put more time into understanding the characters, because they are not always consistent, but consistency also isn't a mark of human nature. We just do the best we can! I hope you like my Anne section this chapter. She, on the other hand, is growing harder and harder to write. I'm just so eager to get to the next stage (the next chapter after this one) that I couldn't contain myself! As for The Borgias, you've probably discovered all the best vids, but I will send you my favorites in a private message. =) Enjoy, dear!**

**Alyson, I hope you will offer me feedback on the trajectory of the Carew storyline in this chapter. It went in a different direction than I anticipated but I am oddly happy with it. The tension and heartbreak is just going to get worse from here, too, but I'm hoping I write it well enough that it's still an enjoyable and not entirely depressing read ;)**

i.

17 May

Wee Hours of the Morning

"This one," Lissie said firmly. "She'll appreciate the singularity of the Christ. And it is so different from other scenes of the passion." She touched the frame of the chosen painting.

Carew smiled, satisfied. "It is a fine piece indeed. Now I won't have to create diversions to keep your sister out of here."

He picked up the painting carefully and started from the library, heading toward his study. She glanced around and followed.

"May I ask you something?" Carew said over his shoulder. He was looking around for the best spot to conceal this painting.

"Yes."

He glanced at her. "D'you fear your brother?"

"Edward?"

Carew chuckled, eyes roaming the room. "I don't think you fear Tom."

Lissie smiled too. "No – and, no. But Edward certainly keeps close watch on all of us."

"That befits his status as the most senior member of the family active at court," Carew reasoned. He slid the painting between the end of a bookcase and the corner; not entirely hidden, but one would have to search to find it. Lissie nodded and held her ground on the carpet. It was perhaps two, or two-thirty in the morning. She'd gone through the motions of preparing for bed, only to pull on a set of stockings, slipper shoes, a dressing robe, and an overdress. Her nightshift was not visible, nor was, really, her figure. Part of her had known she would not be going to bed. Part of her had known she would accept Sir Nicholas's invitation, that she'd accepted it already. Still, ever the gentleman, he had looked surprised and pleased to see her appear in his library.

"And the eldest brother," she agreed.

He nodded. "What would he say if he knew you were here now?"

Lissie felt a little heat rush to her cheeks. "I cannot say I would expect him to approve."

"No." They faced each other uncertainly. Elizabeth took a few steps forward.

"Yet you invited me, and here I am," she pointed out.

"Indeed." His gaze traced her face, the lines of her tightly wrapped garments, head to toe. "Here you are."

The thrill that ran through her when he looked at her that way, spoke to her thus, was undeniable. She decided on a bold gamble and took another step forward. "And why have you asked me here?"

They now stood a few paces apart, and Carew narrowed the space by one step himself. "I would ask you to let me be your friend. Elizabeth."

"My friend?" she echoed.

"Your admirer."

"Ah. You would ask permission to enjoy me. Is that it?"

Now Carew looked a bit flushed. "Yes."

"I told you that I would not be your mistress."

"And I do not ask you to be," he maintained. He stepped forward again in earnest, now only an arm's length from her. "I ask that you would let me admire you, indulge you. Take pleasure from your pleasure."

"More wine?" she teased, eyes dancing even as Carew raised one hand to touch her face. She could not help but to lean into his touch.

He slid his fingers into her hair. "If that is what you wish. I enjoy your company. It pleases me to see you pleased. Tell me what pleases you and I will do my utmost to secure it."

She closed her eyes as he kissed her right cheek, the one he was not caressing. His lips were soft and the kiss was gentle. He pushed his hand entirely into her hair, tied back simply with a ribbon, and kissed her now-free left cheek.

"Would it please you?" he asked, hovering before her lips.

She still felt unbalanced from the night's libations, a sensation which was heightened with her eyes closed. She could hear Edward's voice, Edward's selfish, insistent demands in her ears, but it was drowned out quickly by the pounding of her heart. She nodded, and Carew's mouth pressed against hers.

Some time later they parted, each a little breathless, and Carew touched her lip with his thumb again. He smiled. "You taste like my wine."

Lissie smiled back and moved into his arms. Carew's hands found her waist through the layers of fabric. He bent his head and kissed her again.

"I am drunk with you," he murmured the next time they parted. Lissie felt more intoxicated now, somehow, than she had before she'd finished her last cup of wine at the party. Heat radiated from her skin. She'd never felt arousal like this. Outright, brazen arousal. Arousal that could lead somewhere.

Again, she did not respond. She hardly trusted herself to speak, fatigue and drink and lust clouding her senses as they did. Instead she leant up to initiate their next kiss, parting her lips and sighing when Carew's tongue slid across them.

Carew was panting, his own skin hot to the touch as well, and he lifted her off her feet to kiss her neck. "Elizabeth," he whimpered.

"Nicholas," she replied firmly. "Nicholas."

"Tell me." It was a request, not a command. Barely a murmur. He set her back on her feet and tugged her along with him, kissing her lips gently, each kiss lingering. He sat down in the great chair next to his desk and pulled her onto his lap. His gaze was piercing, serious. "Tell me how to please you."

"I do not know," she confessed. "I've… no knowledge of the ways of love."

He pulled back. "Surely you demur? You have no knowledge of love?"

Lissie looked down. She wanted to say, _but I ache to find out._ Her legs trembled, draped as they were across his. "None, as yet."

"I think…" Carew swallowed, visibly nervous. He laced his fingers through hers where her hand rested on her lap. "I think there are things that would please you."

She prayed that he could not feel her arousal. It was such folly, such stupidity, what she was doing. That she was even here was grounds for scandal. But the sensations were far beyond what she could have imagined, and it was only his kiss. Only his eyes and words.

"I think so, too," she replied finally.

"Things you would enjoy…"

"Yes," she breathed and kissed him again.

His hand came to rest on her foot, which was so conveniently perched on the seat next to him. Through her stocking she felt the warmth of his palm and a thrill went through her at the contact. Innocent though it was, and full of promise. He traced a gentle line up her ankle, moving slowly, while his lips lavished adoration on hers.

By the time he came to her knee, Lissie's lips were quivering.

"Are you pleased?" Carew murmured.

"Yes." She could not manage anything further. His hand ventured slightly above her knee and rested on her inner thigh. She forgot how to breathe. Another finger's length, and her stocking would end, and he would be touching her bare thigh. No man had ever, ever touched her there. Her first husband had not even groped beneath her nightshift, preferring to watch her dress and undress from bed, since he was not able and seemed ashamed of this fact. She would never understand men.

Carew's fingers stole up quickly to the top of her stocking and she gasped. He hesitated. "Elizabeth?"

"Nicholas." She whispered his name into his ear and he pushed his fingers closer to her sex, and then stopped.

The smile was evident in his voice, even as her eyes were closed. She had pressed her face against his neck, unable to keep up with the kissing, unable to manage both sensations at once. "You must be pleased."

"Oh?"

"I feel your arousal." He pulled back, forcing her to face him, and then kissed her sweetly. "Would you have me stop here?" The question was serious, not teasing. She could stop him any time she wished.

The pleasure was so forbidden, so certainly immoral and she wished she had the power to ignore it. She thought, hazily, of Edward's praise of her, that she was still pure as the day she'd been born. Edward had such faith in her. Yet Edward thought nothing of crawling on top of her in her bed, waking her from a peaceful sleep, and then finding his way back to his own room and his wife. She could not remain his pure, careful sister forever. She could not wait forever. She would not. She shook her head, and one of Carew's fingers grazed her uppermost thigh, then the area between. Lissie sighed deep and long, wanting something she knew she could not have.

He stroked her a little, his touch careful but sure. "Yes?" he asked her, finally understanding that she was incapable of true conversation.

"Yes."

His free arm wrapped around her waist and he pulled her closer, gripping her firmly, as if to make her aware that she was safe. She could now feel his excitement too, unmistakable and arousing against her thigh. Time passed, probably no more than a few minutes, but what felt like an eternity. A blissful eternity. Lissie gasped and whimpered, the force of her sexuality heightened by the knowledge that Carew took pleasure in pleasing her.

Then, suddenly, Carew pushed a finger inside of her. Her lower back arched and she uttered an unintelligible syllable. Her lips parted to speak, to murmur Carew's first name, or to tell him "yes."

But instead, the reality of what she was doing, what she'd spent the past hour doing – indeed, the sun would be up rather soon – broke over her like a clap of thunder. Here she sat in the study of a long-married man, in his lap, with his hand between her parted legs. She had promised she would be prudent. She had scoffed at the revelation that he'd seduced a number of women to his bed. And here she sat, closer than not to becoming one of them. She was acting like a common harlot, not the sensible sister of a future Queen of England.

Lissie's eyes flew open. "Sir Nicholas…"

"Elizabeth?" He failed to notice she had not addressed him intimately, his head resting against her shoulder as it was.

"I must –" she shifted uncomfortably in his lap, the evidence of his lust for her now making her feel exposed and tawdry. "I must go to my bed."

"Of – of course. Of course. Are you all right?" He withdrew his hand from between her thighs, even that small sensation causing a fresh thread of arousal to pull through her.

Now her cheeks burned with a heat that was not delicious. She slid from his lap, her chin trembling. "Yes. Thank you. And thank you for your kind attentions," she babbled stupidly, turning away.

"Elizabeth… wait – I…" He rose as she hurried from the study, almost breaking into a run, desperate to put distance between them. She could hardly believe what she'd just done. What she'd almost just done.

_Please, God, spare me being seen by anyone at this hour._ She balled both hands into fists and did not release them until she stood alone in her bedchamber. She was sweating and shaking. She cast off her overdress and her robe and knelt on the cool floor beside her bed, too overwhelmed to cry or pray. Her head pounded. After a time she comforted herself that Nicholas, Sir Nicholas, would not come after her. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers entirely over herself, falling into an exhausted sleep.

ii.

Morning

The news of the deaths of Anne's supposed lovers was related with an air of nonchalance about court: _did you know they're all finished? Yes. This morning._ There had been little in the way of discussion about the arrangements. Henry had not been moved to sentence the men to traitor's deaths, and so each was dispatched with the single swing of an axe. It was, under the present circumstances, considered merciful.

Each man had remained steadfast, as they had done at their trials. One by one they'd mounted the rickety scaffold that had been built for them. The group of those awaiting their turn stood still together, united in understanding, in agreed-upon, mutual, ill-concealed disbelief. They offered one another no final words but exchanged glances and nods, as if afraid to look upon one another for too long. Had any of them had the wherewithal to gaze up and around in the pale morning light, they might have seen their queen's face pressed against a window high above, where she leant her forehead and watched their demises with tears that began silent and flowed into hysteria.

It was a ghostly play more than a real event. A conspiracy, arrests, even trials and sentencing were one thing. But with every man that mounted the scaffold and met his end, with each head stricken from its body, the brutality of Henry's reign, its policies, and its chief minister grew chillingly clearer.

Kingston watched the spectacle through grim eyes. He had never had difficulty watching executions, and these were no different. Mark Smeaton trembled as though he would break apart into pieces and rain shards over the witnesses, effectively completing the executioner's duties in his place. Yet he held himself together and gave a nod to the fellow who would send him to his death, thirty, forty years before his time. He murmured last words to himself – Kingston could see his lips moving, but the crowd did not strain to hear him, nor did that seem to be his intention – and raised his dark eyes heavenward as he got on his knees before squeezing them shut and bending his form over the block. He kept his hands behind his back rather than steadying himself against the wood. He'd knotted his unruly mane somehow and secured it above the nape of his neck, so that the blade's path would be clear. If only he had been so circumspect during his life.

The axe fell, and Smeaton was finished. His blood poured out over the scaffold, the garish crimson more characteristic of the man than any of his recent appearances or actions. As his head dropped off to the side, the twisted knot fell apart and Smeaton's curls swirled about his still-lifelike face.

Henry Norris was next and the man hardly contained himself better than his predecessor: his face the picture of disbelief, Norris approached the executioner with skittish eyes that sought a reprieve. Kingston averted his own eyes. He did not want to see the anguish there. And so it was that he missed the man's last words, if indeed there were any. Norris lowered himself to the block and clutched it as one might clutch at the Lord's feet. He may have even kissed it as he stretched out his neck and, like Smeaton, closed his eyes.

The axe fell with vehemence this time – or perhaps it just seemed that way. Norris' long, lean frame remained wrapped around the block, and the executioner had to nudge his body out of the way. One of the axeman's boys spread handfuls of fresh hay over the block to mop up the mingled blood of the queen's first two lovers, the differences between the fluid that was all that remained of these two men already indiscernible as it seeped over the scaffold. This was why a new scaffold was usually built for executions: the wood was always ruined, stained. It gave rise to ghost tales and dark memories that no one, Kingston included, wished to entertain.

Brereton all but hopped up the stairs to the platform, the panels creaking a bit under every step. Brereton was of broad and muscular girth, with shoulders so wide he had to pass through some doorways diagonally. He extended his arm and shook hands with the executioner, no fear or challenge in the gesture. His expression of grim understanding matched Kingston's own. They both understood this day as a sacrifice to their age. To their king.

He ran a hand through his dark hair, looking almost as wild as Smeaton's, although this was not his usual appearance. Time in the Tower did different things to different men. For Brereton, it appeared to have simplified him. No barber services or rich soaps to be found within the stone fortress. The Brereton before them was a bare, unpolished version of the aggressive Welsh governor that had, they all knew, brought this fate on himself. And not through any sexual liaison with his similarly dark-haired queen, which would certainly have been preferable in terms of enjoyment to the running of Wales.

"If you judge, judge the best." Brereton's powerful lungs boomed: the first man to make a farewell speech. Well, a farewell comment. Kingston's eyes surveyed the crowd. No one seemed much moved by Brereton's sparing oration. The statesman looked around, too, hair and beard unkempt, and Kingston could have sworn he saw the man shrug before he knelt. The block was too low for him. Brereton was substantially taller than Cromwell, who dwarfed the king by a few inches. This was the first moment of doubt for Brereton. The first and the only: he walked his knees backward a few paces and laid his shoulders and head in the mostly-clean curve of the wood. His eyes drifted closed, not the determined squeezing shut of Smeaton or the reverent hopefulness of Norris, but a casual shutting of the eyes. Like a nap on a breezy summer day.

The axe fell, and the power with which Brereton's body continued to eject blood was far greater than either of the men before him. The foremost layers of spectators were sprayed with the essence of Brereton's life. The axeman's boy hurried over with fresh hay from his basket. Kingston wondered idly if the boy was in apprenticeship to be an executioner. How did one choose that vocation, at – the boy could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen years old, with a mop of fuzzy blonde hair like the down of a baby bird. And how did the lessons go? Was the boy permitted to practice his technique on unwitting prisoners who were of no account?

A bit of panic registered on the boy's face as he sought the eyes of the executioner. Brereton's body was still spurting sticky, warm blood, at a rate that would exhaust the entire basket of hay. The crowd shrank back against itself. The front rows were anointed with Brereton, hopefully judging the best, as he had requested.

Did the pressure of the blood pumping still through Brereton's emptying body belie the man's true fear? Had the lightness, the indifferent gestures and body language, all been an act to conceal his terror? Under the surface, had he been stricken through with a paralyzing horror and dread that he had practiced and planned to hide for the final few minutes of his life? They would never know.

The boy backed away and all eyes turned toward Weston, who personified the fear that Brereton may have been hiding. The scaffold was home to an ever-expanding red stain. Brereton's body will pumped out its blood, staining the headless corpses of Smeaton and Norris beside him. Weston shook his head at the executioner, his shoulders hunched forward as if to protect his vulnerable spots. His head strained forward and downward as well. Weston's animal instincts of self-protection were on full display.

"Come along," the executioner beckoned, not sternly, not gently. The man was toneless. Kingston glanced at the boy who was apparently in apprenticeship to this position. _How it must ruin a man to kill for a living,_ he thought.

Weston held his place still. One of the Tower guard turned to look at the gaoler, but Kingston shook his head. He would not have Weston hauled onto the platform unless truly necessary. Weston shook his head again, not to anyone but himself. His eyes were far away. His hair was close-cropped like that of George Boleyn, who was the only man left standing beside him. As a peer, George had the privilege of being killed last. It seemed counterintuitive to Kingston that watching four other men die, while knowing that the same horror will soon be one's own, would be considered a privilege.

The crowd crept forward again as Brereton's bleeding slowed – there could not have been much left, Kingston thought – and anyway, they were eager to see the actions of Weston. The man shied back, actually taking a small step behind him. He looked around, lost. His eyes brimmed with tears.

All at once, George Boleyn was beside him and had a hand on his shoulder. The crowd's jeering was drowning out the conversation, but George held Weston's gaze and spoke slowly. He nodded all the while. Weston shook his head minutely, and then stilled. After a few moments he nodded too. George turned his head toward the crowd, and from what he could see of George's profile, it looked to Kingston like he was saying, "you must be strong." He seemed to be indicating the crowd as the enemy, a short-sighted concept to be sure. But when facing one's death in just a few minutes, there was not much need for anything longer.

Finally Weston nodded and touched George's shoulder, returning the gesture. He gave the other man one last look and steadily mounted the stairs. "Pray…" was all he had to offer, the word visible on his lips rather than audible in the din. He dropped to his knees and tucked his head down over the block. Tears began streaming almost immediately and dripped down his cheeks and off the tip of his nose onto the bloodstained wood below.

The axe fell and George Boleyn exhaled heavily in front of him, bowing his head. Now it was his turn.

iii.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," Anne murmured over and over, her face pressed against the glass which was warm and slick with her tears. "George, please, I'm so sorry."

George could not hear her, and could not see her. She should have asked Kingston to tell George she would be watching. Maybe her brother could have turned and they could have had one last wave goodbye. She hated herself for not having the forethought. She hated herself for a lot of reasons.

Her brother was speaking, and from inside the Tower it sounded like the crowd had quieted to hear him. Anne hated the hypocrisy: as if George was the only man whose farewell was worth hearing. Because he was a peer. Of course, to her, his farewell was the most worthwhile. But five men would die today for the same crime. Five equal deaths, five equal executions. Five equal parts blood on her hands, on her heart, on her soul. And on Cromwell's hands and on Henry's hands and –

Now George was finished, and he gave a little bow to the executioner and knelt, one knee at a time.

"No, no, no, George!" Anne began shrieking in a voice that was not her own. She heard the voice and knew it came from her throat, but had no intention of screaming, and likewise no ability to stop. She inwardly chastised the woman who was screaming, all the while reaching deeper into her chest for the last burst of volume. "George! _George!_"

Maybe if she screamed loudly enough, he would hear her.

He crossed himself and said one last prayer. She did not have to see his face to know his eyes were closed. "George…" she started to close her eyes and forced them open, wiping the salt tears away so her vision would not be blurred. She would see George through.

Anne was panting, gasping inside her corset, unable to draw breath deeply enough to fill her lungs. "No, no," she murmured as her brother laid himself on the block. "No, no –"

The axe fell and she was screaming again.

iv.

Early Afternoon

"Thank Jesus," Kingston murmured as Cromwell negotiated the wider-than-usual gap between barge and dock.

"Have you missed me?" the minister teased without a smile.

The gaoler mirrored Cromwell's lack of mirth. "She is hysterical."

Cromwell closed his eyes briefly. He'd come to the Tower as a procedural necessity, to deal with any lingering issues concerning the deceased and to collect the bills for their imprisonment. It was an expensive thing, keeping five men in the Tower. Yet he should have known he could have no hope of a visit to this place without some mention of her. "Certainly it was expected that she would mourn," he tried. They started up the dock.

"She has screamed herself hoarse. She's been screaming since the executions. She says she cannot breathe."

Cromwell's eyes traced the outline of the Tower against the midday sky. It had been over two hours since the executions had finished. "Can no one contain her? Can no one comfort her?"

Kingston's eyebrows rose and settled. He seemed to want to ask if Cromwell himself thought he could do the job, and suddenly, Cromwell wanted to. He wanted nothing more, actually, than to wind his way up to her rooms and take her in his arms and let her scream and sob until she was spent. He owed her that.

But instead Kingston said, "Her maids are scared out of their wits."

"Of course they are." Weren't they all?

"We have asked her if there is anything she needs… she just…" Kingston looked away briefly, and then faced forward again. "She does not respond. Just turns her face into her pillow and screams. Her bed will be soaked through with tears if she keeps this up. She'll rail herself to death."

Both men avoided the irony, but Kingston's message was obvious. He did not want Anne's health endangered under his tenure. His only responsibility was to keep her alive and well long enough that Cromwell could kill her, and he was insistent on fulfilling his duties.

They paused at the door to the lower level of the Tower corridor, where Kingston's offices and administrative staff were located. Cromwell finally looked the man in the eyes, frustration bubbling to the surface. "What would you have me do? Take her into my arms and rock her to sleep?"

To his credit, the gaoler did not so much as blink. "I would have you either tell me what to do, or that there is nothing to be done. Thus I can relinquish responsibility. I am at a loss."

"Relinquish it to me," Cromwell muttered, rubbing his eyes. "I will absorb it."

"And before you go, I would have you check on her, to be certain we are in agreement on her state."

Cromwell's empty eyes in their hollowing sockets connected with Kingston's own bleak gaze. Everything the minister could never have said was in that look. Helplessness, resignation, hatred, guilt. Despair. Burning despair.

But then it was gone, and Cromwell pushed open the door to the dim corridor, and he nodded at Kingston and led the way inside. Kingston watched the secretary's hunched shoulders and recognized the same primal self-protection, the same fear, that he had just witnessed in Weston this morning. Cromwell's head drooped a little, just a little, as far as Kingston could see before he shut the door behind them and cut off the light. Unseen by the secretary, Kingston shook his head. _How it must ruin a man to kill for a living,_ he thought again.

v.

Early Evening

All dead. All but one.

Tomorrow he would be able to say, _All dead._ And he would pick up the pieces of himself and move on. He would become a whole man again, worthy of a new wife, worthy of a woman like Jane. But tonight, he could not seem to shake the horrible black dread that squeezed his heart. This darkness was frightening to him, because he had not been so gripped by a feeling since he first fell in love with Anne Boleyn, and look how long that had held him. He could not bear to think what would happen if this held him similarly. He would not be worthy of Jane, he would not be worthy of his crown, he would not be worthy of life.

Part of him wanted to call for Charles, his dear friend, the only man in the world who understood him. But not even Charles could understand this. Charles had never had a woman betray him; Charles had never been deceived by a woman. Charles was more a man than he, Henry, was. Henry had always justified his own shortcomings as a product of the greater responsibility he carried as a king, but even he knew it was not so. Anne had challenged him and made him feel whole. Vibrant. She'd made him feel like a man. But just as easily, she had frustrated him and made him feel like a boy again, like that little boy he had once been, in the shadow of Arthur, his brother, the future king. The little boy who had been desperate to please his father and insistent on loving his mother. After a point in his life, Henry had wanted to stop being that little boy. And as time had droned on, God had shown him that Anne was not the way to do that. No, another woman who loved others above him was not the way to be a king. Not the way to be a man.

He wanted Norris back. He'd wanted him back since he was arrested. No one else could possibly be what Norris had been to him for years, a quiet comfort, although whether that was because Norris understood when the king needed him and when to draw away, Henry could never know. Now he never would know.

How he hated them, all of them. His blood ran hot and angry when he imagined them with Anne: Norris pleasing her quietly, the way he had been for Henry, discreetly under cover of darkness and sheets. Smeaton probably performing unspeakable acts on her body, pleasuring the basest parts of her that Anne herself would not have known she wanted pleasured. Smeaton would be the man to know those things, to teach her those things. Weston, with all his youth and ardour, enthusiastic as Henry imagined he would have been in bed, making love to her all through the night until she begged him leave for her exhausted body. And Brereton… all that muscle and brawn. He had probably hoisted her clean off her feet, sank into her in midair. Her slight weight would have been nothing in his arms. With George, Henry could not even begin to imagine. If Anne was so incautious about her transgressions that she would take five lovers, God only knew how she had come about with George. Henry could only get as far as imagining them together, whispering "shhh" to one another and stifling their cries against the other's skin.

How often he had wondered in the last month which one she had liked best.

How often he had wondered how he had measured against them.

How often he had wondered if it was too late to ask.

He was crying again, and he kept his eyes closed because he was convinced – and afraid – that his tears were black. Crying ink. Crying his blackened soul out his eyes, letting it seep through his skin. He had to get it out now, had to purge himself of this torment, of his friends, of her… he had to let this die with her. He had hoped it would die with them, and been secretly and intensely disappointed when it had not. If it did not die, how could he marry Jane? How could he trust Jane? How could he hope for things to be different with his next wife, in his new world, if he could not set himself to rights first?

A grown man should not weep the way he had been lately, and he knew that. These tribulations were nothing in comparison with what other men faced: his father, exiled from boyhood and nearly killed several times before even taking the throne, which he then spent the rest of his life fighting to keep. He imagined what Henry Tudor would have to say of his son's heartache. He could only picture a grim, bored shake of the head. He imagined what Jane would say to hear of his troubles. He could picture her warm brown eyes, her outstretched arms, her cloud of blonde hair which she would not fuss to have dampened with his tears. He could not imagine his own mother having comforted him quite so.

But Anne had. In their years together they had shared everything. He had woven her the tapestry of his boyhood, mother, father, siblings, death, love, education. Kingship. Betrayal. She had listened to him like no other person ever could, and had always offered him her insights, her observations. She had asked him searching, delicate questions that made him think again about difficult subjects that he thought he had reckoned fully. Sometimes, without meaning to, she had shaken him to his core. This had been in the early years of their relationship, when they were courting and not lovers. So he would excuse himself to his bed and she to hers, separately, and he would have to go alone and get under the covers and stare at the ceiling, thinking about what she'd said and wondering whether she was right and he was wrong and he misunderstood himself, and his family, and his life, and…

Jane would not. Jane would nod and soothe him, he knew it. She would comfort him with open arms and then she would come to bed with him and not leave him alone. She would never leave him alone when he needed her. He could tell what type of woman she was. And he must be certain to be a worthy husband, a worthy man for her.

He had tried to be worthy for Anne. He had thought himself worthy. He had offered her everything. And his friends – his men… what had he done wrong? What had he done to deserve such betrayal? _Everything I do,_ he had once told Anne, _is for you._ And she had smiled, tears in her eyes, and kissed his open palm. _I know, my love. And I would do everything, anything, for you._

Henry curled into a ball and wept into his forearms, tears pooling in the crooks of his elbows. Like a little boy. It was not too late to ask her… what? She had one more night on this earth, and he would be free of her. He would never weep thus again, for his life with Jane would not end this way. He tried to picture it, tried to soothe himself with the image of his future bliss. But all he could picture was Anne's reverent eyes as she kissed his palm, squeezed his fingers, and assured him of her love and devotion. As she listened intently to his rambling stories and nodded, her attention unwavering and genuine. It was not too late to find out the truth about why, why, _why._ It was not too late to hear it from her lips.

Mucus slicked his mouth and chin, but no more tears came. Henry lied still for several minutes, breathing in and breathing out, his mind flicking between Anne. Jane. Anne. Jane. His mother. His father. Anne. Jane. Katherine. Mary. Elizabeth. Arthur. Katherine. Mary. Anne. Elizabeth. Jane. His mother. Anne. Jane. Anne.

He drew a great breath into his lungs and stood shakily. He wiped his face on his sleeve and thought to change his shirt. But there was no need. He found a jacket – damask and too formal for the occasion, but it was the first one he spied – in case the night was chilly. On the river, it probably would be.

vi.

Evening

"Liss?" The inquiry startled her out of the beginning stages of sleep, but she was not alert enough to answer promptly. "Liss?"

That could only be one person.

"Yes?" Dragging herself up on one elbow, Lissie peered into the darkness. "What time is it?"

Edward crossed the floor, not bothering to tiptoe. He stood beside her. "Late. What's the matter? Are you ill?"

"No. Why?"

"You barely spoke and spent the day up here. You would not look at any of us. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she whispered.

"D'you think I'm a fool?" Edward replied tiredly. He touched the tip of her nose, trying at a jest. "Shall I try to tease it out of you?"

When she did not laugh, he crawled over her and sat on the bed, his black velvet robe like an ink stain on her white coverlets.

"You must tell me," he said simply.

Lissie sat up and pulled her knees into her chest. Indeed, she must tell him, and she'd known all day that she would. "I… you must try not to hate me, for I hate myself already."

Edward moved closer and reached for her arm. She shied away a little. He withdrew his hand. "Never. Why would you say so?"

She cleared her throat. "Last night, at the end of the reception, I was bidding Sir Nicholas a good night and he related that he required my opinion presently on which painting to give Jane as a wedding gift… and he said that they were in the library."

"Where they've been as long as we have stayed here," Edward clarified.

"Yes. He made a point of… well, before, a few days ago he'd said the library was adjacent to his private study."

"So it is."

Lissie was silent for a few moments. "And he expressed that the need was immediate."

His expression never faltered, but she felt Edward stiffen. "He invited you there, then? To the library? To his study?"

"Not… not outright."

"But he insinuated it. For the middle of the night?"

"I…"

She trailed off, hearing Edward's breathing. Each breath was long and deep. He stared into nothingness. "Did you go?" He finally asked, gaze flitting up to her face.

Lissie lowered her eyes.

"Lissie… my God," Edward murmured.

"I am sorry, I'm so sorry." She buried her face in both palms, a few tears leaking from her eyes. "It was a horrible, terrible mistake. I thought, I thought I understood what I was doing, and I did not."

The room was so silent outside of her hands that Lissie was afraid Edward would strike her or scream at her. Instead, he reached out and pulled her arms away from her face. "Did he…" He looked into her eyes, failing to finish the question.

"No." She shook her head, swiping her hand over her cheeks. "But –"

Edward moved so swiftly and angrily that he cut her off. "But. But." He climbed over her and was on his feet in a second.

"Edward, stop," she pleaded.

"I'll kill him." It was a growl. A vow.

Lissie's heart lurched in panic. "No – stop – Edward, please, stop," she begged, a fresh wave of tears coursing down her cheeks. She caught him and tugged at his robe. "Please. He did nothing wrong."

He gripped her shoulders angrily, as though it was her he wanted to kill. "Inviting a woman fifteen years his junior into his private rooms in the middle of the night, when she's had plenty of wine to drink? Does that not strike you as wrong?"

She nodded, ceding the point. "The error is mine. Please, no one must know. I shall die of shame."

A battle waged visibly in her brother's face, what little she could see of it in the dark room. He swallowed a few times and his nostrils flared and settled. At last, he raised his knee and crawled back onto her bed, settling beside her. "What happened?"

"I… told him which painting I preferred for Jane's wedding gift. He agreed and I followed him into his study where he planned to hide it. He…"

"He what?" Edward's voice was flat and hard.

"Earlier he had asked me to let him enjoy me, to be my friend, and he broached the same. I agreed. I saw no harm," she explained, hoping desperately that Edward would not lash out at her. "I thought… I was flattered."

A sigh. "Of course you were."

"He kissed one cheek, and the other, and then," she faltered.

"Your mouth."

"Yes, my mouth."

Edward blinked a few times. "And that is all?"

Lissie bit the insides of her lips; they'd begun to tremble. Her eyes filled with tears again.

"Liss," Edward prompted, his voice urgent, "is that all?"

"No." She shook her head. She would not sob, she promised herself. Tears may flow, but she would not give herself over to sobbing. "Then…"

"Jesus Christ," Edward groaned, putting a hand over his own eyes. "Please do not tell it to me like a story. Just – the worst of it."

Lissie nodded although he could not see her. "He touched me," she whispered.

His head shot up and he stared at her. "What?" he rasped.

"He –"

"Where?"

Her eyes were trained on the mussed linens that covered her lap. "Between…"

She trailed off, but he did not need her to finish. "God," he murmured again.

"Edward, please, I'm so sorry." She could barely whisper. "Please do not tell me that you warned me; I know you warned me. I was stupid. I'm foolish, I..." She looked over at him but he was looking away, looking at nothing it appeared. "I was flattered, he said he enjoyed me and I just… I am twenty-three years old now, I want, I mean I cannot help but… that sort of attention… but I know, I was wrong and I…"

He cleared his throat. "How did this end?"

"I stopped him and said I had to go to my bed."

"Did he try to join you?"

"No, no." She shook her head vehemently. "He forced none of this upon me, I swear. It was my own idiocy. I felt I could not help myself. And then suddenly, I could."

Edward nodded slowly. "I see."

"Please, you mustn't hate me for this," she said again, anxious at his bare sentences, his emotionless tone.

He looked down at her and slowly lifted an arm. It encircled her in a loose embrace. "Never. We all have our moments of weakness. You must learn from this, though. It seems you have." She turned her face into his shoulder and hid her tears with both hands.

"I wanted to die, Edward, I thought I would die of shame once I realized what I was doing, sitting on a married man's lap…" with her face buried, she missed the fury that flashed across Edward's face when she divulged that detail. "Letting him touch me so, in all my life I've never done anything like that, I cannot think what came over me."

"Lust," Edward suggested, so low she barely registered the word.

"My lack of sense frightened me – I could not believe what I had done, what I had thought about doing. I … I am so sorry." Neither one had to ask why she was apologizing so profusely to him. She sniffled, wiping her tears dry now. She'd unburdened her soul to him, so it seemed, or at least placed the burden on his soul instead. "I should have kept my wits about me."

Lissie shook her head at her own actions, rubbing her face against Edward's robe and drying it. She had curled her knees tightly to her chest and they began to relax. She had been granted a pardon, it seemed. An absolution. Perhaps she could yet wash this memory away.

Minutes later, Edward's voice broke the silence. "Did you like it?"

She pulled her face away from his shoulder and met his gaze. She nodded, guilt evident on her face. "I am sorry," she whispered again.

Edward let her settle her back against him, both siblings looking across the room and out the window. He put both arms around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "You needn't be sorry."

She closed her eyes and eased back against him, ignoring the cool streaks her tears had left on her face and neck. "But I am."

In time she fell asleep, dreaming nothing, the peaceful sleep of a calm mind. She woke to a hoarse voice screaming a name in the distance, and she tensed and straightened in bed, taking note that her neck ached from sleeping in an awkward position.

When she shook the fog from her mind, Lissie identified the voice as the king's. He was screaming for Jane. And casting a glance around her bed, Lissie realized with a sort of wistful acceptance that Edward was gone, leaving only a carefully-straightened coverlet to indicate she had not dreamed that he had been there.

vii.

Jane's eyes were wide with panic. Tom was knocking low, steady, on her door. "Jane!"

Still downstairs: _Jane? Jane!_

Tom nudged the door open. "Coming," Jane hissed, finding the dressing robe she had shed when she'd gone to bed. She knotted it around her waist and ran her fingers through her hair, hoping it was not too mussed. It was clear who was downstairs, who had come looking for her in the dead of the night. Why did Henry always have to show up unannounced, when she was not ready? But of course, this was what marriage would be. She must always be ready.

"God's sake." Tom's own hair was entirely unkempt and stuck up every which way. His eyes were bleary in the light of the single candle he held. Down the corridor, Lissie peeked out of her room.

"Why is he here?" she demanded in a whisper.

_Jane!_ The king's voice was growing raw and desperate.

Edward was upon them in a moment, looking alert enough that one could hardly believe he'd just been asleep. His wife hung back at their bedchamber door, squinting and rubbing her eyes. "Go," Edward said.

"Alone?" Jane's eyes widened further.

"This is not a moment for a family welcome," he replied, prodding her down the hall. "He's here for you."

Jane smoothed her hair again and drew the robe closer about herself. She shot Lissie a pleading look as they passed her on their way to the top of the stairs. "But what about…"

"Trust me," Edward murmured into her ear. Jane could not have seen that his eyes met Lissie's over Jane's shoulder. That they mutually looked away.

_Jane…_

Jane took off, barefoot, down the staircase. She did not want to shout back as Henry called for her yet again. She burst through the foyer into the great hall, set back to rights after the reception last night, dark and deserted. Henry exhaled deeply as he saw her, and Jane stopped short in front of him. She began to curtsy a greeting but Henry stopped her and got on his knees instead. His hair was mussed, much like her brothers', and he seemed oddly dressed up. Moonlight fell on him as he knelt before her like a supplicant.

"Jane," he managed, finally in a whisper.

"Your Majesty."

"Please do not call me that." He reached for her hands and drew her closer. He cupped his hands around her own and put his face into both of her palms. "They're dead," he mumbled uselessly. "All dead, and my fault."

Her heart jumped a little in alarm. "Not your fault…" she trailed off, unsure how to address him. "But because of their actions."

"I must have… I…" Henry shook his head. She felt wetness in her hands. He was crying. "I cannot think what I have done to deserve this."

In spite of herself, Jane's mouth opened in horror. "You deserve none of this," she murmured. "You are a wonderful man that I am honoured to know." She paused again, heart still pounding, and decided to risk it. "And love."

Henry descended into tears. "Jane…" The way he said her name sounded like begging.

Slowly so as not to startle him, Jane slid her hands over his hair, pushing it out of his face. Then she knelt before him and encircled his shoulders with first one arm and then, as he moved closer, the other. She cupped the back of his head and tilted it against her shoulder. "Henry," she whispered back firmly.

"I do not deserve you," he managed, his face buried in her neck.

Tears sprang to her eyes but she could not understand why. Empathy? Guilt? Fear?

She kissed his temple, hoping he would forgive the presumption. "It is I who am undeserving, my love."

Her siblings were arranged on the stairs far behind her, from only a small section of which one might spy the king and his sweetheart. Edward, Tom, Anne and Elizabeth all crouched and leant to position themselves within this small space, looking absurdly like a group of children hiding from their parents.

Tom shook his head. "What on earth?"

"Love?" Anne Stanhope suggested in a whisper.

"Comfort." Edward nodded in approval.

Lissie shook her head. "Weakness," she murmured. "And strength. In perfect balance, for this moment at least."

"Wonder where Sir Nicholas might be," Anne mused.

Edward's jaw tightened. "Even he is not such a fool as to make himself known at such a time."

"The king won't try to…" Tom trailed off. Henry and Jane were wound around one another, arms and legs intertwined.

"I think this is a different type of intimacy." Lissie nudged him with her elbow, trying to silence his reactive chuckle.

He smiled. "Much less enjoyable."

"Not necessarily," Edward countered without turning around.

"Should we… leave them alone?" Anne whispered to her husband. Edward still did not move his gaze, and with perfect timing Henry kissed Jane, chastely and softly.

He shook his head. "Not yet. You should go back to bed, wife. I will join you as soon as I can."

Anne nodded and kissed his cheek. "Goodnight," she whispered to Lissie and Tom, and left them alone, the three Seymours watching their sister. Edward eased onto the stairs and Tom hovered on his knees directly behind. Lissie settled on the step above and leant her head over so she could see, nearly resting it on Edward's shoulder.

"What would we do if he were to attempt?" Tom persisted.

"Let them," Edward whispered. "They've gone too far now. He will marry her. Come what may."

"A bold statement." Lissie yawned.

"So we would just go back to our beds? Surely we would not watch," Tom needled, ever the rogue.

Lissie glared at him. "Tom, have some manners. You're about to be brother-in-law to the King of England."

"The two of you are too serious," he rolled his eyes in return. "I'm for my bed. Come fetch me if they start undressing."

When they were alone, Lissie looked at Edward. "You really would let him take her thus?"

Edward thought a moment. "I would not interfere. Can you imagine?" They both smiled at the thought: Edward bounding down the stairs out of nowhere and demanding the king separate from his sister in this most private of moments. "And anyway, why not let him have what he wants. What they both want."

"I suppose they should have what they want, at this stage." She nodded along, eyelids heavy.

"Someone should." He kept his gaze straight ahead.

Lissie smiled a sad smile. After several uneventful minutes, she could fight her fatigue no longer. "I am for my bed too." She kissed his cheek as Anne had, and whispered in his ear: "Thank you, for before." She straightened. "I'll leave the door open. In case Jane does not want to be alone after."

Her hand lingered on his shoulder, and he patted it. "Shall I come get you if they start undressing?" he teased. She pulled herself up and tiptoed back to bed, aware that his eyes were on her now.

vii.

After Midnight

She had known she would confess before Cranmer, and had prepared herself accordingly. She had wondered when it would happen. He'd come and gone with a palpable sorrow, but also with a silence and a guarded expression that let her know he was Cromwell's man and she should not mistake him for anything else.

The traditional confession would make sense, of course, even though neither she nor Cranmer nor Cromwell would have thought such a thing necessary. God knew all her sins; oh, indeed. She recited them to Him hourly, lest He forget. God did not need to hear her confession to a priest. She had taken up enough of His time in the past days. He would not be angry with her for doing what she had to do: confess her innocence. And innocent she was, of the charges laid against her. Cranmer would have known this to be true, but she wondered whether Cromwell had felt a hint of anxiety when waiting for the Archbishop's report of her confession. She wondered, too, what would have happened if she had been entirely truthful, made it an honest and thorough confession.

Cromwell had been in the Tower today. One of her maids had come to tell her that he was in the fortress and would fetch a doctor if she was ill. She could not quite remember it now, but apparently she had been screaming, screaming herself hoarse after her brother was killed. The maid – Kit or Kat, she could never remember and was still too embarrassed to ask – told her when she awoke after falling into a fitful sleep that they had tried to pull her from the window before George's death, but she did not remember that either. She only remembered watching him, her face pressed to the window, shouting, _No, no, no, George, no…_

The maid had shifted nervously and said Cromwell was just outside her rooms, in the corridor. Would she like an audience?

This had frightened the scream out of her. No. No, she needed no audience. She had turned her face into the pillow that was soaked with her tears and let the discomfort of the cool wetness shock her body into gooseflesh, which gave way to shivers, which gave way to numbness. She supposed it was at that point that she'd fallen asleep.

To be truthful, the entire day was a blur. Anne no more knew what the hour was, nor did she care. She would be dead in the morning and there was no need to live her last night on earth in any state other than this. Any energy devoted to gathering herself would be poorly spent.

She was trembling. It came in waves. She was struggling to finish her handkerchief; just a little embroidery left and it would be complete. But every stitch required a few attempts at stabbing the needle into the correct spot, and most failed attempts resulted in sticking herself with the needle.

She was hungry and she knew it. She noted it like a person might note that they've muddied the stairs on the way inside. Her stomach was empty and had been empty all day, but she knew she would be sick if she ate anything.

_Master Cromwell has come calling_, the girl had said. _He has come to check on your state._

Anne had smiled a little. Her state?

If she ate now, she would be sick and nauseated and she merely had hours left until it was time. And so much to do. Finish embroidering. Write a letter to her sister. Which, she had no delusions, would probably never reach Mary. But she still had to write it. She could not die without putting to paper the words she should have said two years ago. She had just thought she had more time. More time. Always more time. It echoed through her mind, which was at once teeming with other thoughts and empty of any substantive ideas.

_My state? _She had asked the girl. _I am not entirely well._

The maid had twitched nervously. _He… Your Majesty had been screaming. We –_

_Would you not scream, too?_ She had snapped at the girl.

She'd thought she had more time, more time to have children, more time to spend with Elizabeth, more time to repair her relationships: with Henry, with Mary, with George. More time to spend with her mother. More time to see her ladies and her favourites happily settled in marriage. More time to read and write and learn and become something other than the desirable lady who had ensnared the King of England and caused a scandal in Christendom. More time where she could find herself, find Anne, a person who had not existed for over ten years – over a third of her life. And for the first twenty years of one's life, could one really be deemed oneself? No, she thought not. So then, Anne, herself, had never truly existed. She had never had the chance. Thus it was perhaps not such a tragedy that she would die in a few hours, never having lived in any real way.

She had not cried since she woke up earlier, which was a great victory. Her recent victories differed substantially from those of her younger days: holding out against her lust for Henry for six years, maintaining her composure while her entire homeland mocked her as a whore, continuing her religious practices even while the church she had grown up with denounced her as a Jezebel. Now victory was being able to count more than an hour's worth of minutes without weeping. And she would not cry now. But she did wince a little as she pierced her thumb yet again. She'd become a clumsy embroiderer of late.

The handkerchief was finally finished, nearly all of her black thread having been sacrificed for this project, and Anne found herself feeling ill although she had not eaten. Her eyes tracked to the sky in spite of herself, and she saw that it was well past three in the morning. Where, she asked herself again, had the time gone? Her maids, bless them, were sound asleep two chambers away. She would not wake them with her retching if she did succumb to it – not entirely out of consideration, but also because she would rather spend her last hours alone than in the company of women whose names she could hardly remember. Actually, that mattered little, she realized as she lifted herself from her window seat and blew out several tapers. She made her way to her bed, beside which rested a goblet of forgotten wine. She would not even want Nan right now. There was a certain elegance to knowing that one's death approaches. Certainly, many people could predict their deaths when they were ill, or might fear and expect death in battle or other circumstances. But to know for certain the hour of one's death, and the minutes left that one has to endure, was a rare thing. An unsettling and comforting notion at once.

Anne had tried to plan her final hours countless times: she would pray, bathe, pray, try to rest in bed to preserve her strength, pray, dress carefully, pray…

She should have known the reality would not be so easy. At this moment she would be satisfied just to keep the contents of her stomach where they were. Small victories again. She eased herself down onto the bed and sipped the wine, willing herself not to get sick.

_My lady, should I allow him entrance or inform him that you are well and will require no further attention this afternoon?_ Kit or Kat had asked.

Unspeakable, unthinkable responses had splintered and crashed through Anne's mind. Let him in, she'd wanted to say. I have something to tell him. Something he should hear before I go. Something he deserves to know. I'm not only screaming because my brother is dead. I'm not only screaming because I soon will be too. I'm screaming because…

_Tell him I am fine,_ she had said softly, her throat smarting at even this small usage. She had turned over, away from Kit or Kat, and clutched a nearby pillow against her lower stomach. She'd squeezed it there and murmured over her shoulder at the girl, who hovered in the doorway, _Tell him I am preparing myself and will require no further attention._

Alone now, with just a few hours to go, Anne put both hands over her stomach. She used to do this with Elizabeth, and with the others while she'd had them. It was early now – nearly four weeks, given what she knew the date of conception must have been – far too early for much of anything, but since she had less than six hours to live, it seemed as good a time as any.

"Your father," she whispered into the silent room, "I would have you know, does not mean to do what he is doing. It is not his fault entirely. It is mine, too, and the fault of another man. Your father is not a bad man. He is not an entirely good man, either, as I am not an entirely good woman. It is better that you will never have to learn about what either of us is, entirely. It is better that you will not have to endure what you would have to endure, as the child of both of us together.

"But you would be loved." She swallowed, but no tears threatened themselves. She rested her head backward and spoke toward the ceiling now, hands still resting on her lower belly. "Indeed you would be very loved. I hope… I hope that I will meet you after, in… I hope that you will be there, after. I would so love to have you there. I pray God sees fit to let us be together. I pray He will take mercy on me. And on your father, too.

"I would have you know that I am not a wicked woman," she tried to say, but this time the vow caught in her throat. She coughed and swallowed it down. She had to stop this. Her hands shook against the slight swell of her lower belly. "And your father is not a wicked man. He does not know what he is doing, you see, and – if he did, there is nothing that he could do now. He does not understand what he is doing to us. It is my fault, that. I know you cannot understand me but I pray that somehow, in some world, you might."

_My lady, Master Secretary Cromwell has departed for Greenwich. He sends you his well wishes for your continued health._

"I wish it could have been different. I would trade a great deal for this to have been different. Truly, I… I am so sorry, my sweetheart, you've no idea, how sorry. I love you."

Anne closed her teary eyes. "I love you, sweetheart." She breathed in and out, trying to envision herself in the afterlife, hopefully not alone and damned. Hopefully with some chance at redemption. In the afterlife, there might be endless amounts of time. Endless chances at redemption, at absolution. Time might stretch infinitely before her, possibilities in every direction, further than the eye could possibly see. She would always, she hoped, have more time.

She started, eyes opening in terror: the guilty look of a person who knows she has overslept. She had not meant to fall asleep at all. Frantically, Anne looked about; one hand remained on her stomach, where it had been for all this time. She propped herself up on the other arm and looked out the window to the east. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, shy and gentle like an admirer. The last sunrise; she would never see a dark, starry sky again. Her hours were over.


End file.
